Bardic Soldier
by SmilingJester
Summary: A scottish teen that booted up Gun Gale Online, only to be trapped in the world of slaughter and fire-arms as Crow. This is a AU where instead of SAO trapping people, its GGO. Mostly OC with a few minor appearances of original characters. The fifth sequel to the original novel. The plot will change and I have taken creative liberties over the game's features. M for violence OC/OC
1. Chapter 1

I boot up the new game for the nerve gear. Gun Gale Online. The new VRFPS shooter MMO. Mouthful isn't it. I already have the gear needed because I was one of the lucky few that got in the beta. I got to a rather high level there. Too bad I have to start over.

I am sent to a white room. I am asked what my handle will be. I type in the one I used for the beta. Crow. It then sends me to edit my appearance. It shows me what I look like now.

A skinny, almost feminine body, with a girly face that has straight black as night hair hanging down to my shoulders. Looks to be around sixteen. How can a Scottish man look so much like a girl. This thought always cross my mind when I look into a mirror. I change myself into a burly man that would not look like a push over.

Into the game I go. And immediately regret that decision. After an hour of being trapped in a plaza with ten thousand other people. A cloaked figure comes out. Tells us that this is a legit death game. That if we die, we die for good. Also changes everyone avatar to what they really look like. DAMMIT! He goes on to tell us that we must clear the entire world of the bosses. there are 100 sections with bosses hidden in each. in the beta, we only found and killed five! And that took three months! Then he just fucks off and leaves us.

Keeping a cool head, I run out and buy the weapons I used in the beta. A 1911 and a M-4 assault rifle. I picked up also some flashes and smoke to be on the safe side. As I leave something catches my eye. A trench knife.

Using the rest of my money, I buy the combat knife. Just in case I run out of ammo and need to make a last ditch effort to survive. Time to head out and get some levels. I jog out of the city and into the wilderness. The lore of GGO is that it is a post nuclear war environment. There are mutated everything to act as the games mobs. Also undead and demonic creatures thrown in. You know, variety. It is split in sectors, watch has a theme to it. The theme for the beginning is that of a forest.

Selecting single shot for my rifle, I start to fire and take out the level ones in the area with accurate head shots. In real life, my father loved guns. He was a marine in the USA before coming back to his homeland of Scotland. Where he met my mother. After I was born and turned nine, he taught me how to handle most small arms. Mom did not really "like" the idea of her nine-year old child holding a rifle longer then he is tall. Over the years, he trained me to shoot as good or better than most American Marines. We came to Japan just an after my thirteenth birthday.

After an hour of this, I level up twice. Finally taking a break, I open my menu. Going to stats I look them over. There are two.

[STR] dominates recoil absorption, if I can hold and use higher tier weapon (LMG's and etc), and it dominates my inventory weight limits.

[AGI] dominates speed of character. Plain and simply

I also have two skill slots. One is for [small arms] (I.e my weapons).The other I set for is [perception]. Need to find to things to kill them.

I put half in strength and half in agility. Not going to focus just yet. Though, I probably am going for an agile build. Getting up from my resting spot, I head farther into the wastelands. There's a safe outpost a few miles out. There's a quest there to get a sight for my rifle. Can't keep iron sights forever.

As I move, I keep the my eyes moving. Making sure no one sneaks up on me. Another thing about this game was it was designed to be a big PvP game. I don't wish to die by some dick player on the first day.

After a few hours and a lot of shooting, I reach the town just as I fire the last shot from my 1911, into the final rabid dog of a pack that has been hounding me for the last mile of road.

I find the gunsmith that holds the quest and ask him if he needs any assistance. He asks me to go and clear out a nearby subway station. Never gave the reason. Just wants the creatures in there dead. Accepting, I also sell my trash mats to him and buy a lot more ammo, also a combat helmet with a flashlight on it.

I immediately start to head out after buying my equipment. I jog out of the shop, only to run into a small figure, outside of the doorway. Knocking them over. "Oh bullocks. Are you okay? I'm so sorry!" I say to the downed figure that I now see is a girl. She has raven colored hair. I offer her a hand up, which she takes.

She looks at me with dull ocean blue eyes, surprised from being bowled over. Pulling her up, she answers back, "yeah I'm fine, are you doing the sight job too?" I nod "You want to party up? I," she gives a nervous laugh, "I am kinda scared to go in those tunnels."

I quickly agree, secretly I too despised those tunnels, and send her a party invite. She accepts and goes to get the quest. Looking at her name. I read Cheshire. Like the cat from wonderland. Nice name.

After she gets the job, we head out north to the AO. (Area of Operation). Looking at Cheshire, I notice she is a submachine gun user. Strapped to her is the MP5. Looks to be the 9 mm version. I don't see any other pieces on her though. "Is that the only gun you use?" I ask midway to the tunnels.

"Yeah, I used this gun for most of the beta. I fell in love and now it's all I use." I can feel her. I fell in love with the 1911 even though it is one of the weaker .45's with a terrible mag size. But if American soldiers won World War 2 with this as their side arm, then I can win the game with it as mine.

Arriving at the subway entrance, I lay out the plan for her, "I'll take point. You follow behind me and cover my back. When we stack, I'll take the right and go first you take left. When we get to the tunnel system. I'll need you up front with your weapon in the hall sections. Do you have a flashlight?" She nods, confirming the question.

We go down the stairs and stack on the door into the lobby of the subway. I signal "on three" with a countdown to one, I step back and kick the door open.

Heading in, closely followed by Cheshire, I see two undead humanoids. Firing twice, they both fall, I hear a short burst from behind. "Clear right!" I call

"Clear left!" She calls back to me.

I point my gun to the hallway leading farther in. "moving up." I walk down checking all rooms we pass. Few had hostiles which I quickly dispatched. We get to the tunnels easily.

Remember the entrance to the sub tunnels to be small, I sling my rifle and draw my sidearm. On Cheshire's go, I kick the door and she leads me in. We kill all the undeads here too. Then we reach the tunnels.

The tunnel for this instance I remember is about a few hundred meters long and is just a curved circle with a room at the far end that holds the field boss.

Cheshire starts left. I reach out and grab her shoulder, "wait, I did this before and it did wonders to help clear this alone." I take out a clip of my assault rifle and place of in my mouth. "Get ready," I grunt out.

I level the gun and sent the entire clip of my rifle down the tunnel. After the echoes ended, the zombies came shuffling out of the darkness from both ends. I take right and she left. We stand back to back for fifteens straight minutes just killing the hoards of zombies. Oh the money we well get.

When the last died, a message popped up. "Tunnels clear! New objective - defeat field boss [zombie king]" Cheshire leads the way and we soon arrive at the boss room.

In the back is a giant zombie. We quickly open fire at it's head. As it shuffles closer, taking the bullets like a... Well boss, I switch targets and blow out its rotting knees.

With a roar, it falls onto its face. I quickly jump onto it's back and press the rifle to the back of its head. Slapping on full auto, I pump the entire clip into its skull, splattering myself with brain matter and gore. When I run out, I take my knife out and repeatedly stabbed its neck. Then it shattered into crystals. Cheshire and I level up twice.

Laughing I get up from the ground and go over to Cheshire. "That was awesome, nice job with that sub!" I get to her and hug her. I am a rather affectionate person.

She laughs too and we head out. Just as more players arrive. "Sup fellows, sorry we just finished up in there. I think the respawn for this place is a half hour." They just stare at me and Cheshire. Seeming to eye bang her. She looks really uncomfortable under their eyes. And a few were staring at me. Creepy.

Clapping my hands to get their attention off her and all onto me. I say to the men "Best of luck to you! Watch for the king, he can take abuse, got to get close to finish that bastard." Indicating my blood stained self." Take him at the knees." With that I grab Cheshire's hand and lead the way back to the outpost.

We walk for a bit, then Cheshire spoke up "thanks for getting to stop looking at me like that." I pat her on the back and continue on without saying anything.

Getting to the quest giver, we get the sights. A red dot square version not that crappy looking middle eastern scope one. The America one. I also get the EXP needed to level up again. Damn, we're on a roll today. Using the rest of my money, I buy from the man some ammo, a suppressor for my 1911 and fore grip. Leaving enough for dinner and a room at the inn.

Cheshire buys ammo and a gun barrel from the man. I believe it's to reduce recoil. We head out and go to a nearby vendor to get some sandwiches. "Thanks for partying with me Crow, it was fun to fight with you." she says as she opens her sandwich.

"Same here, even though we could die from all this. I had a blast fighting through those hoards." We share a few more laughs while we eat. We finish our food and get up for the inn. It's about ten at night when we get there. Walking in we are greeted by a woman with green hair.

"Welcome players! The rooms are 100 dollars each!" I stumble forward from surprise. The rent is around five times more. From the surprised look on Cheshire's face, this shocked her too.

Looking at my money, I cried "Shit! I only have 50!" Cheshire said something similar but a little more. That barrel had really put her back on funds. Rubbing my hand through my face I sigh. "Dammit... I guess I need to go get some money. Cheshire, I'll give you some so you can get some sleep. I owe you for the help." I open a trade window and give her forty dollars to get her to a hundred.

"How about this, we share a room." All I do is stare at her. "What there nothing strange about it." Yes there is. A guy sleeping in the same bed as a girl he just met. But I was tired, so I just nod. "Okay, at least I don't have to go mess around at night with those rabid fuckers all over the place." I think in my head.

She rents the room. It is hers for the entire week. Heading up, we enter the room. It was furnished with a plain bed and had a shower with a curtain in one corner.

"Dibs on the shower! Need to wash the zombie brains out of my hair." She agrees and goes lay down on the bed. I go in and close the curtain. Unequipping all my gear and cloths, I turn the shower on and wash the gore from my hair and body. When I'm done, I put my causal clothes back on without the boots. Stepping out, I call that the showers free.

She gets from the bed and heads over and I flop down on the now vacant bed. I get under the covers and scoot to the side. I start to fall asleep as Cheshire got into the bed. She snuggled in close against my chest for warmth and fell asleep. I soon followed not caring at this point. Just glad for the company.

I wake up to a quiet sobbing next to me. It's around six in the morning. Shifting, I find Cheshire crying into my shirt. "Are you okay?" I quietly ask her. She was shaking badly and didn't answer.

I scooped her up and hugged her. She hugged me back, crushing my ribs, ow, and continued to cry and shake. She stops after an hour and untangles herself from me. "Sorry."

"Ah think nothing of it lass. I'm here if you need to talk to anyone or need a torso to crush. I'll try to stay until you no longer need me around." I give her a smile which she smile back to. Then I falter. I notice she is not wearing anything but underclothing. "Ho!" I advert my sight from her "uhh could you put on some clothes."

"Why? We're both girls here?" What... She thinks I'm a girl! Oh holy mother of hell. I get up from the bed. And cover my face, groaning into my hands. "What's wrong?"

"Wow... Oh sweet Anu! how am I going to tell you this? I am... Uh not a girl." I hear an intake of breath. "Sorry didn't know I look or sounded that much like a girl to fool anyone. Your probably going to beat my ass to the ground now right?"

"No... No... You didn't try anything and it was my fault for not realizing it." I can hear her trying to convince herself those words. She wants to kill me. I can hear it.

Sighing, I equip my gear and turn to the door. "Well this probably fucked this friendship up. Nice to have met you, see you around." I move to the door.

"Wait, where are you going. Didn't you say you would stay." This stopped me and had me turn to the girl in bed. She had pulled the covers to hide her body.

"You still want to party with me?" Wow thought she would go into an all out rage because I saw her naked. "Well then... See you in the morning, got to go make some money for another room."

She mumbles out as I turn, I only hear it with my increased perception, "you don't have to change rooms." I once again freeze. Did she just say she wanted me to stay. Guess she is scared of being alone in this game. I know I am.

"Okay," I open the door and head out to the lobby. I use the rest of my money and buy two sandwiches. These things are expensive but so good. Munching on mine, I wait for Cheshire.

When she comes down, I hand her the sandwich and we eat in silence. Getting up, we head out to grind.


	2. Chapter 2

A few weeks later, we are in a new outpost. Sector 1 is still not clear. Time to explain farther of GGO sector setup. It is like a ring. The starter city is in the center and the first section is a few miles around it. the boundary is a wall come down when the boss is killed. Then a few more miles added to the circle with every new territory unlocked. Each sector except the first has a two towns in it to transport to from gates. One in the north and one in the south.

We both leveled up to the average and far beyond. Now at level sixteen and Cheshire at fifteen. We are probably the highest ranking players here. With the levels came two skill slots. Cheshire hasn't told me all of hers, but one I know is cooking. I picked [Sprint] and [munitions craft]. I can now run faster and longer. Training the skill increases the speed and time I can run. I can now also make ammunition for us. After some leveling, I should be able to make some really good anti armor or taser rounds.

I am currently working on a few hundred full metal jackets for Cheshire's gun. I already finished with my bullets. As I finish crafting Cheshire's rounds as she sleeps. It's around eight in the morning. I level the skill to 100. I level it fast due to always having the materials to make them. We always have money due to our day long grind trips.

A message pops up. "Congratulations! You can now create fragmentation ordinance!" Oh hells yes. I immediately go and buy some materials to build a grenade.

Back in our room, I go to my mobile gun workstation and start to work. After a minute I was about to finish, then I hear a small click in the grenade. That can't be good. BOOM! I am flung back and into the wall, denting it. My vision fades as Cheshire jumps out of bed.

I feel someone shaking my shoulders "Crow! Crow! Please wake up! Please!" They sound like their on the edge of tears. Groaning, I open my eyes and see my health. It's in the red and not going back up. "Are you okay!? What happened to you!?" With a scratchy and pained voice I tell her, "I wanted to surprise you when you woke up. I tried to make you some grenades and something went wrong. It blow in my face."

She helps me to my feet, which I almost could barely stand on. Looking down, I am covered in soot and my own blood. She leads me to our bed and gentle puts me down.

I fall unconscious again from the pain of the wounds. We are in a safe zone! Why does it hurt so bad?! I wake a few hours with Cheshire laying next to me in the bed. I slowly get up, sore from the damage and without disturbing Cheshire, stand up from the bed. Heading over to my work station, I find it survived the blast.

I pack it up and send Cheshire a message for when she wakes. "Going out for lunch and search for weapon upgrades. Left your bullets on the nightstand. I have healed some, but I'm not heading out to the field today I think."

Leaving quietly, I head downstairs. As I go to the door I feel a tap on my shoulder. "Are you okay?" A worried voice asked me. Turning I see a girl with pink hair. "I heard a boom a few hours ago and it looks like it happened to you."

Laughing I say, "Aye, that was me. I was trying to make some frags and something went wrong. They went off and I almost died." She looks at me strangely. I can't put the expression, it looks like she knows the problem. That must mean she's a craftier too. Maybe..."You a gunsmith or just a munition engineer like me?"

"Both... Why?"

"How good are you at assault rifles?"

"The best that I know of... Why?" I pull out my M-4 Socom. I had bought another flashlight and a laser for the gun at this point.

"Is it possible to upgrade the damage for this? It may not look it, but it is the basic M-4 from the start of the game." She took it and opened it up.

"I could get a new recoil system for better control and a new trigger system for smoother fire, but that's it. I could build you one that is about three times better though."

"How much for your services? And are you also good at submachine guns too?" With that, I had her make me a new version of the M-4 and a way better version of the MP-5 Cheshire uses. That used up most of my money, but they were top notch weapons. The smith, Lizbeth also gave me tips on how to make grenades. I had apparently used a bad pin and it had prematurely detonated when it was being assembled. Wow this game is really heavy on details.

Thanking her, I go back to the room. Cheshire was just getting up. "Morning sleepy one. I have a gift for you that didn't almost kill me to get." She sits up from bed and rubs her eyes. She still sleeps in only undergarments. I have seen her in them enough not to show any sign of surprise.

I pull out the new gun and hand it to her. I then grab my new gun and switch out my attachments from my old one. "Wow! Where did you get these!?"

"I met a nice girl in the lobby. She noticed my bloody self and asked if I was the cause of the explosion earlier. After laughing at my failures, we got to chatting and I found she was a really good smith. I paid her to make us both some top of the line weapons."

Cheshire got up and suddenly hugged me. She breaks the hug and steps back. She had a dazzling smile on her face. Smiling back I suggest we try them out. Fuck my weakness.

I go over to the stand and toss her the FMJ I made for her. She takes one and slaps it into the gun and chambers a round. At that moment a thought races through my head. She is the hottest girl I have ever seen. Waving it away, I load my own and we equip our gear.

Heading out, I buy us lunch, never got around to pick up mine. After that we head out to the field and try out the guns. They work magnificently. Tearing apart the hounds that surround this town.

I then get a message from an informant I sometimes meet and pay for quest info. Argo. Opening it, I see that there is going to be a meeting about the sector boss in the main plaza in the city. Informing Cheshire about it, we head off.

We get there just in time to catch the meeting. We go over the boss. A giant Kobold. The plan of attack and who's where. As the meeting was winding down, a man with spiky hair jumped up into the center of the group.

"I think there are people here that owe us an apology! The beta testers that left us to fend for ourselves!" He scans the crowd and his eyes land on Cheshire and her tricked out rifle. "You!" He struts over to us with arrogant confidences. He stops and shouts into her face "people like you are the reason over two thousand people are dead! It's only fair you give us all your gear to help prepare us for th-" he doesn't finish as I level my sidearm at his head.

I aim it right to his forehead, "back up or I will hurt you." I sneer at him.

"What can you and this bitch do t-" I shift the gun to the left and fire. The bullet goes through his hair. The sound echoes and deafen the man. I hadn't put the suppressor on today. I then move the gun to the other side of his head and fire. I holster the gun and sucker punch him in the gut. With a roundhouse kick to the chest, the bastard goes sailing over people into a stone building. Knocking him out. Hitting heads can still knock a person out even in a safe zone.

The conscious players look at us with varied expressions. Ranging from amused to balls out hatred. I mumble into Cheshire's ear, "I think it is time to go." She nods and we quickly leave.

We made a plan to meet them at the boss gate. We still want to fight the thing. On the way, I stop in at the inn we left the other day from. I easily find Lizbeth building guns for some obviously lust filled customers around her. When she finishes up and gives them a fake award-winning smile and a well crafted weapon. They bugger off soon after.

Seeing a new customer, she puts on the "glad to do business with you" smile. "Hello there my pink haired friend!" I greet her. She looks at my face and sees it's the bloke that bought those two expensive guns.

"Hello, didn't expect to see you again anytime soon. Thought those guns drained your funds."

"Ah not quite. Close though. I came back to ask you something. Do you mix any plastic explosives?" She gives me a look that seems to ask "what the hell am I doing to need something like that." Laughing at the look I explain, "In case things go south in the boss fight tomorrow, I may need a back up plan."

She nods and mixes me a batch of her best explosives. Handing it to me, she says "good luck with the fight. I'm rooting for you." I use the last of my money on the bomb. She drives high bargains, but her wares, I must admit, are the best I have ever seen in all my time as a beta tester.

With that done, I head up to my room and go to sleep. Cheshire joins me an hour later. She was I guess leveling her skills. I don't question what she does.

Waking at dawn, we head out. Fighting our way to the boss room, we stop and make a small fire once we get to the giant gate. We are in a field with the wall in front of us and a forest area behind. There is a good hundred meters of open territory. No mobs can sneak up on us.

As Cheshire cooks, something very unexpected happens. From nearby bushes, gunfire erupts and bullets whine all around us. Someone was trying to kill us!

I pop a smoke and go to the only cover there is. Through the boss door. Opening the gate, I immediately turn and slam it shut behind us. I hear rounds pinging off the surface as the attackers continue to fire.

I lean against the door to make sure no one comes in after us. I hear a thud nearby. Looking up, I see a behemoth of a kobold standing in the center with a cleaver and a grin on his face. He is suited in some heavy plates. My rounds won't be able to punch through that.

We are royally fucked. I hatch a terrible plan in my head. Well might as well give it a shot. Calling out to Cheshire, I say "come over here and take this!" I pull out a detonator. Slap it in her hands and beg, "Don't make it go boom before I'm clear."

"Wha-" I charge at the kobold. In one hand is my knife. In the other is my brick of explosives. With a roar the beast swings at me. Trying to cleave me in half.

Rolling under the swing, I jump onto its knee. Slap the plastic onto his torso and pin it there with the knife. The side of the armor is a leather material. Thank the gods or my knife wouldn't stay put. Jumping off and rolling to the ground, I scream "Blow the Fucker!"

A deafening boom and immense heat washes over my back. I jump to my feet and turn to the black cloud of fire. Bringing up my rifle, I charge at the smoke. As I jump through, I see the monster on the ground, armor gone along with four of the five bars of health. Totally buying everything explosive from Lizzy.

Jumping on its prone body, I press the barrel onto his heart and pull the trigger. All the jackets gets criticals for hitting a vital organ. Every hit stunning the beast for a fraction of a sec. Enough to keep it down.

I reload and unload again. He erupts into a shower of shards and I get a results screen. I leveled up three times, seems that Cheshire did too. Also a ton of money and a gun called the... "Colt 1911 VB." the stats, I pause. It has triple the damage of the original.

I stare at the screen, then switch the guns. Hearing the thudding of feet, I look up in time to get tackled. I just barely stay on my feet. Wrapped around my chest is Cheshire bear hugging me. I start to giggle uncontrollable, "We...We took out the boss! And I didn't die from that suicide run!"

I feel her shake her head, muffled laughter reaches my ears. "Okay. Now we got to think how to esca-" I stop in mid sentence, looking at the gate. The raiding group was standing there. Staring at the two youths standing in the middle of a smoking crater. Giggling and hugging.

I eject my spent mag and reload. Leveling the rifle, I push Cheshire behind me. "I'll meet you at the north town. Go open the gate," I quietly tell Cheshire "I'll handle these guys."

She takes off and I use my other hand to stabilize my rifle. The leader of the raid, a blue haired man, step forward "Did you beat the boss solo?" Why did he ask that? Did he not see Cheshire? He continued forward.

"That's close enough!" I snarl at the man. He gives me a questioning look and stares at the gun I now have trained on him. "You and your bastard group tried to kill us! Made me and my friend fight a boss alone just to survive!"

"What are you talking about!? We just got here! We didn't even know you girls would be here." Did he just call me a girl. Damn. Why does everyone think that I'm a female!

"Then who the hell shot at us out front!? I yell at the man. "You must have seen them! We were only in here for like five minutes until you guys showed up."

"You killed the boss in five minutes!? How!?"

"Big ass brick of plastics and sixty straight heavy caliber FMJs to the thing's chest. Now I answered that, tell me who shot at us!"

I lower my rifle and put my hand around my back. Acting like i was waiting for my question to be answered. When in reality, I was prepping a flash, hooking the pin on my belt. "We really don't know." If they don't know, then they are still around here or he is lying. Yanking the flash out, I toss it up and pop a smoke behind it. There are cries of surprise and pain as the group is blinded. I sprint at full speed after Cheshire.

I catch up to her with my sprint skill. We are about five clicks from the north. As we run, I see Cheshire starting to limp. I grab her hand and stop her. Looking down, I see she had taken a bullet to the leg in the ambush. Wordlessly, I picked her up and continued running the rest of the way holding her. She struggled for a bit, once along the way she gave me her puppy dog eyes, saying she could walk. Only to almost collapse when she stood. She protested no more while I carried her to an inn and bought a room.

Setting her down, I tell her I was going out to activate the sectors portal. I do this by just walking up to he gate and say "activate" done with that, I go back to the room to find Cheshire sleeping, it was only around noon though.

I just let her nap. She's had a stressful day. Getting shot, then having to worry about my dumb ass as I charged a boss, holding heavy explosives.

Heading out again, I go to the border of the town and beyond. Going to grind some and waste some ammo. Opening my menu, I see I have a few new skill slots. Scrolling through the list, I pick the [Acrobatics] If I get attacked again, might as well be able to escape in the trees or ruins. Guess I have something else to train. I'll pick the other later.

Drawing my pistol, I activate sprint and charge to a nearby ruin. Still within view of the safe zone, just to be safe. Using my experience before this game and the new skill, I kick off the wall and up. Using my free hand, I haul myself up the wall onto a roof that couldn't even keep the wind out.

Jumping down, I repeat this for a few hours. Leveling both the skills up slowly. By the time I stop, players from city are starting to stream into the area, eager for new land.

Heading back, I think to myself suddenly. "I need a hobby." I thought the munitions craft was a hobby... Until I bedridden myself because of faulty materials. Now I need something safe to do other than just fucking with explosives. No matter how fun it is.

Looking through the list, I see a misc section. Looking through it, I find music. There's [Singing] and a verity of musical instruments. I think to my past. I like singing, but SUCK at it. I vaguely know how to play the guitar. That's it, on an impulse, I pick [Lute].

I walk into the general store and purchase a beginners lute. Also I sell off any trash mats I have on person. I find that i got a nifty coat from the boss. Walking out, I equip it and sling it on my back. Not wanting anyone to see me, the forward party of raiders may try to get me for my stunt. I use my new skill and swiftly climb atop a nearby roof.

I kill around an hour and a half teaching myself the instrument using the on-screen prompts. Using my experience with a guitar, I easily pick up the beginning chords and leveled up the skill ten levels. Out of a thousand, so 1%. Still not to bad. Relaxing up there, just playing little ballads was a very enjoyable thing. Should do this often.

Putting it away, I jump off the roof and start walking into the shadows. Staying in them, I head back to our room and open the door. Cheshire is still out on the bed. Not wanting to disturb her, I take off my shirt and bundle it into a pillow. I set myself on the floor and quickly fall into the void.


	3. Chapter 3

Somehow, I wake before Cheshire. So I get up, slip the wrinkled shirt back on, and start making today's ammo. Need to replenish my spent rounds. Also because I just love the smell of gunpowder.

Other then the new found music, I find this the most relaxing thing to do. If only the lute smelled of gunpowder. After I made myself a set of rounds and Cheshire some more. I send her a message of where to find me and head out back to the roof. I'm feeling very lazy today. I spend around three hours playing until I hear Cheshire calling for me.

Peering down over the corner, I see her standing against the wall of my building. An impulse goes through me. Putting the lute away, I crouch by the edge. With a sharp exhale, I jump off the roof. Landing a meter in front of Cheshire, facing her with a grin on my lips, "Morning!"

With a shriek, she falls over side ways and back startled. Laughing, I bend over and help her to her feet. She brushes some dust off and looks up. Making eye contact, I knew instantly that that this was a terrible idea.

Reinforcing that assumption. Her fist comes up and under my jaw. Giving me a hard uppercut that made me fly back into a fountain a few meters back because of the anti-criminal "protection".

I lay under the water, too stunned to even sit up and start drowning. A few seconds pass. I rise up from the water into a sitting position. Looking at Cheshire, i see she still looks made, but is laughing about sending me into the fountain. I call over, "Worth it!" She looks at me, sitting in the fountain. Dripping wet and with a busted lip. Grinning like a fool. Continues to laugh, she turns and heads off.

Hauling myself from the fountain, sopping wet, I get onto land and squeeze the water from my hair. Jumping up an down a few times, I get most of the puddles out of my clothing. Looking around, I see many people laughing at the display and a few cat calls. Do I truly look that much like a girl! Sure my hair is longer due to the growth system and is now past my collar, but I have no breasts! How the hell do you confuse my body with a woman!

Feeling hate and self-conscience, i start to jog to catch up with her. I get there and match her pace. "Sorry about that, didn't know that would have that kind of reaction," I apologize "breakfast on me today."

For the next half a month, we trained and lived together. Now at the high level of 24, about ten levels past the normal front liner. I have gotten massive levels in my skills and now can make some Anti-armor rounds for my rifle. They are expansive as all hell to make, and unstable while crafting, but they can punch through at least 3-inches of plate steel. For my lute, I can now play long ballads. Loving the arts so much, I, on some insane impulsive reason, got the [Singing] skill. I find that with the systems help. I can tolerate my own voice now. Even if I sound like a fucking girl of sixteen thanks to the passive effects of singing. What the hell! Did god just want me to be a girl?!

The arts skills now have around 200 levels into them, focused to get my singing to lute level, and the crafting is around 340ish. The munitions skill is still helping us with the output of ever advancing ammo.

I still don't let anyone hear me sing. For that I just go on the outskirts, just outside the safe zone and sit in an open meadow. There aren't any mobs here. I've taken to playing the lute there too. The quiet area just adds another element of relaxing. Plus no one is around to make fun of my singing.

Today's one of our break days, as we spent a long and drawn out yesterday killing giant ants. Why do all post-apocalyptic worlds have giant bugs? So I head to the general store and purchase a new book of ballads to sing. Unlike lutes, there is no list of songs that I can bring up on my HUD. I have to read to get the songs.

Basking in the sun, I find myself once again singing to the trees. The little rude ballad called "cuckoo's nest" with my lute adding an extra element to the music.

Today I am determined to sing this song without cracking up. The whole thing is just a long innuendo that stretches for a few minutes. As the song draws to a close, I hear a rustling of leaves behind me.

Slinging the lute around, I draw my sidearm. The lute takes the place of my long firearm. Aiming it at the source of the noise, I wait. Out comes a group of cloak wearing players.

"Ah don't stop on the account of us." The leader says sarcastically. He has his weapon drew and pointed slightly down. He is wielding a small machine pistol. Doing a head count, there are five of them.

Oh what the hell. "Hello fellows, lovely day. May I in know the reason you are here? As you see, there is nothing here to hunt." The leader from under his cloak grins. I dread but foresee his response.

"Ah but there is. A fine mob. The elusive singing humanoid." As these words leave his lips, he raises his gun towards me and unleashed a burst. Ready for this, I rolled to my right. Coming out of the roll, I fire four AA rounds through his chest. He falls to his knees and shattered. Weak.

Stunned by their leaders demise, I was able to kill two more with well placed headshots. As I slam a fresh clip in, his team finally realizes that something is going wrong.

Raising from the crouch, I punch a few holes in them, knocking them off their feet. Running forward, I kick their weapons away from reach and stand on the guy to my lefts neck as I aim at the one on the right.

"So are you one of those stupid PKer groups that's are popping up?" I ask, but it is more of an observation. Once the man nods his head, I continue, "how many have you killed? You and your group."

He looks at me, scared out of his mind. I put more pressure on his friends neck, causing them to gag and weakly try to push my foot up. "Answer me laddy ."

"W-we've taken out about n-nine." As I hear this number, my mind goes blank. Nine people that did nothing wrong, other then enter this game.

"Why?" I growl out.

He stammers out, "leader s-said it would be fun, so we helped h-him." As he said these words. Something in me snap and I pull the trigger. His cry was cut short as the click of the hammer echoed.

He shatters, leaving behind nothing. I move the gun over slightly and fire again. My foot hits the ground with a dull thud. I numbly holster my gun and walk away. Back to the inn. Getting in the room, I sit on the foot of the bed. Cheshire still out doing her thing.

A sudden wash of guilt comes over me. Causing me to let out a sob. I just killed five people. Five living people. Putting my face in my hands, I start to cry. I don't know how long I cried, but when i stopped it was nearing night.

I take off my shirt and boots, then I crawl under the sheets and just wish for the day to end. Falling in a fitful sleep, I awake two hours later to a message.

Dear Crow,

We have you girlfriend. If you come to the abandoned ruins east of the town. There is a chance we may let her live.  
Come alone.

There was no name, nothing, just the instructions. I fly out of the bed. I sprinted out of the inn and to the ruins. Taking only the time equip my rifle. I don't think of what I'm doing. I just act and run.

I run for a few minutes until I reach the ruins. Bull charging through the door with my bare shoulder. With a loud crack of wood, I get into the ruins with my weapon up and at the ready.

Inside, I find a line of six robed figures, all with varying markers, with a cuffed and gagged Cheshire at their feet. See this I roared, "let her go!" Seeing me, she tried to crawl away towards me.

The man with a red marker in the center planted his foot on her back and slammed her on the floor. "Stay you whore!" He screamed at her. I almost snapped again, but held back. "Welcome Crow! Glad you could make it. Too bad you killed my crew, this could have been a pleasant meeting." At this, Cheshire looked up at me with a questioning look, then she looks above my head.

She flinches. Looking up, I see my marker is now red. I'm a full blown PKer. Looking back at the group, I see that they all are ill equipped and looked ragged. They are obviously weak and I had taken out the "strong" men of the group.

Leveling my rifle at the new leader, I demand once again, "let her go. Harm her anymore and I will kill all of you." I see them smirk.

The middle man opens his lips and said, "No I think I'll play with her a bit Lon-." He did not finish the sentence as my bullet tore through his mouth and blew out the back of his neck. Making him shatter.

I quickly unload on the rest of the party, still even with their terrible armor, I was surprised that is was able to kill all but one of the group on my first clip. The last of the group, a teen of around sixteen. I approach with my sidearm out. I don't want to be caught without the capability of retaliation.

"Please! Don't kill me! I didn't touch her honest, that was all Ben and the others!" I put two bullets into his knees. Crippling him. I then find his weapon and take it away from him.

With the threat mostly neutralized, I head over to Cheshire and ungag her. Then destroy the cuffs with a few well placed shots. She sits up and stare at me. She had just watched me kill five people.

"Are you okay?" I ask her. She just stares. Sighing, I pull out a red drink and hand it to her. She slowly takes it and slips it. Offering my hand, I say gently, "come on, lets get out of here."

She takes the hands and I pull her up. Turning, I head out of the building. Away from the crying youth and away from the five dead men.

When I can no longer see the ruins, I stop walking. Gently I guided Cheshire to a clearing on the side of the road. I turn and face her. "I need you to tell me what happened," I say to her softly.

She takes a deep breath and tells me, "I was just heading back from my training and those men jumped me. They had a taser. When I woke up I was in the ruins." She started to shake, it slowly grew more violent as she continued, "T-they said that if I sent them to jail they would kill me! They st... started to touch me. They kept touching me and when I screamed, they put the gag in my mouth." She at this point was shaking so bad. She began to continue, but I stopped her with a hug. She collapsed in my arms.

I fell with her and sat on the ground with her clinging to me. Crying her eyes out. I kissed her forehead and told her she was going to be okay. I do NOT remind her in any way that I just killed the people. She slowly stopped crying. Her breathing evened out. I realized that she had fallen asleep or fainted from the memory. Hopefully the first one.

I gently lifted her and carried her bridal style back to the inn.

On my way back, I pass a group of players coming back from a hunting trip. As I come closer, they stare at me. To them, they see a shirtless feminine male carrying a girl that is sleeping. Then next thing they see is that I'm a red.

One of the men, a large man draws his gun. Followed by the rest of his party. Oh for all that is holy. I don't need this and I don't want Cheshire to be have anything else scare her today.

"Put the woman down and back away from her!" The leader I guess, a tall man that has sunken in eyes and a long face, tells me in a cold voice.

I snap my fingers next to Cheshire's ear. She slowly opens her eyes. "You have to wake up. Shits about to go down if you don't help me explain." I quietly tell her. She looks around and notices I'm carrying her. Her face burns red as I put her on her feet.

"I'm her party member. I was just carrying her back to the inn we are staying at. She was kidnapped and I just got her back." I hastily explain

"Then why is your marker red?! I bet your just one of those PK groups that use girls to lure people to their deaths!" He begins to point his gun at Cheshire.

"Don't point a gun at her." I sneer at the man, "and yes I have killed many people today," seeing the group start to get jumpy, I quickly tell them, "I killed five to protect myself, I guess their crew didn't appreciate that and somehow found and kidnapped my friend. I ended up taking out all but one of them."

During this, I kept my hand on my pistol, if they didn't believe me, I may need to protect Cheshire and myself from trigger happy goons. Looking at the leader, he had doubt written all over his face. He thought I was lying.

Leaning my head to the side I tell Cheshire in a hushed voice, "I don't think they believe me. If things go south, run. Don't look back. If I survive meet me at the inn." She starts to protest but I quietly shush her.

The leader suddenly speaks up, "I don't believe your story, I'm going to have to arrest you both in the name of the liberation force."

"Cheshire run." I say. I hear her protest. I turn and embrace her, "Cheshire please run, they won't be kind to you, thinking your a helper of a PKer. Please don't argue with me." She nods. I think about my next line, I could die tonight, so I might as well tell her or I may never be able too. "I love you." I say to her simply.

I throw her into the nearby brush to keep her from protesting further, quickly I turn and bringing up my pistol. I charge and unleash a burst at the group causing them to dive for cover.

Running, I pop shot after shot at them. I catch one in an uncovered arm and the heavy round tears it off. "Come on you fuckers!" I yell at them and dash to my right, away from the group, and from Cheshire.

I run and leap around the forest, soon bullets whiz by my running form. Some close enough to feel the vacuum of air in their wake. I feel something punch in my lower back and out the front of my stomach and spurt of blood flies out, only to hit me in the legs.

Looking at my health, I see without body armor, I lost a fifth. I wasn't worried about that, what I was worried about was the effect next to my health. Bleeding.

Bleeding causes you to lose health over time, the worse the wound, the faster you lose health. It doesn't kill you, but if you lose 95% of your health with bleeding effects on you, it knocks you out. The wound I have is a gaping stomach wound. My health is dropping at an alarming rate. Another effect is that as it takes away health. An effect of low health is you grow weaker.

I continue to pull through the woods, soon I no longer hear the group. As I run, I start feeling faint. As I once again leap over another fallen tree, my vision blurs and starts to fade. Landing, I stumble. Regaining my balance, I pull myself into the fastest sprint I could go.

I break out of the forest and into a clearing. A familiar one. I fall onto my face as I enter my singing meadow. My health is now at 50/1000. I lose consciousness.

Feeling the rain pounding on my bare back, I awake. Laying there I try to move, but fail. I am too weak to do anything. My health has not changed however. It is still fifty. Looking around, I see it is around six in the morning.

I reach forward and with all the strength I could muster, started dragging myself into the forest once more. I have no chance of not being found if I just lie here. I manage to wedge myself under a set of rocks. Far enough so if a mob gets curious, they won't get aggro'd. Once that is done, I go back to sleep.

As I awake, I see it is night once more, however I now have about half health. Stiffly and with great pains, I crawl out of my hiding place and open my friends list.

Cheshire is still alive and a green. I activate the tracker and see that she followed my direction and is at the inn.

Seeing this, I immediately take off at a full sprint towards town. In my run, this time I remember to slip on my shirt and boots.

It doesn't matter much anyways. My pants are painted with my dried blood. I reach the inn in record time. Flying up the stairs, I get to our room and threw the door open.

There in the middle of the room, is Cheshire pacing around. Hearing the noise she turns to look at me. I notice right away she's been crying. Then how tired she looks. She must not have slept a wink in two days. We stare at each other for what seems like an eternity. Then she runs up to me and hugs me tightly. I return the embrace and we stand there, just hugging.

Breaking from the embrace, she demanded to know why it took so long to come back. I told her how I took a bullet and passed out in the field. She just nodded, then walks over to heavily sit on the bed. I follow and sit next to her.

She leans onto my shoulder. Looking over at her, she looks more then tired. She seems to just be awake with willpower alone. We just sit there, soon I hear her breathing slow and she slid off my shoulder and onto my lightly, I rearrange myself so she would be more comfortable.

Sitting there in the dark room, I find myself starting to sing a gentle lullaby from one of the beginner songbooks. Soon I petter out and drop off into a nap sitting up. Still not fully recovered from the whole event yesterday.

I awake at the crack of dawn laying on my back. Must have fallen back in my sleep. I feel a pressure on my chest. I look down and see Cheshire's head on my ribs. Gentle so I don't wake her, I pick her head up and set it down on the mattress.

Quietly, I get to my feet and pull out my work station. I begin the long and tedious process of putting together my AA rounds. I use quite a lot of them the other day. I also mix some concussion grenades together.

Just as I finish, I hear Cheshire stir from her sleep. It is now around one in the afternoon. I hear the sheet rustle as she sits up. Turning I see hear looking at me. "Mornin', sorry I didn't wake you, you looked **really** tired last night."

We stand there looking at each other in an awkward silence. I suddenly clap my hands together and say, "Well, lets head out for breakfast or lunch." With that we leave and go eat. While eating, I notice many of the players staring daggers at me. Oh yeah, I'm a red now.

Shrugging the glares off, I make small talk with Cheshire. After we finish, we decide that it's best not to stay in this town anymore. Off we go down the road to the next outpost.

On the road, Cheshire stops and grabs my collar. "We need to talk," she says in a quiet voice. Complying, I stop and turn to her. "About what you said before," she starts to blush, "I want to tell you that I l-love you too." She is now beet red ear to ear.

Smiling merrily, I peck her on the cheek and start to lead us forward once more. "Nice to know my feelings are shared." We continue to the next outpost in a comfortable silence.

* * *

A/N - Da HAM :( THE HAM AND CHEESE! WHY!


	4. Chapter 4

We have now been in the game for four months now and we just started to clear this game. With some guidance by some guy, think his name is Heathcliff, a guild was formed and we are now slowly getting to the ninth sector.

My relationship with Cheshire has gone well and the awkwardness of us acting as a couple has worn off. We have also upgraded everything. Now level thirty, we are still high above the average front liner.

I now have the skills [Gun Smith] so I can upgrade and/or make us new guns and attachments. [hiding] is the next because well, I wouldn't have almost died if I could have just dived into a bush or tree. My new load out is the same suppressed 1911. My rifle is the L85 battle rifle. I got it from the fifth boss fight. With Socom attachments to make use easier. Body armor is still light Kevlar.

Cheshire's new skills consist of the hiding one for same reasons. Hide instead of die, and the other is the skill [driving]. On the fourth section, vehicles were unlocked, which under Cheshire's direction, I bought a buggy with a mounted turret. Cheshire said she always wanted to drive in real life, so she is the official driver making me the mounted gunner.

After crashing a few times, she got the hang of it and can drive without hitting anything now. Her load out consists of a sidearm I forced her to wear and a heavily upgraded UMP-45. She was reluctant to give up her MP5, but under the promise of me making her one that would dwarf her old one, she agreed to use the new gun. Sadly, it would be until level 250 until I can deliver that promised weapon and 300 until I can up the recoil system to be like her old 9mm one.

After another brutal day of grinding, I am hit with a bout of laziness. What would be nice is a break to just go to the city for a day or two and just relax. I bring this up with Cheshire on the way back to the inn. She says that she is all for it.

The next day finds us outside the portal. With "Transport: Starting city" we are warped into the plaza of the large city. After messing around and shopping for a few hours. We stumble across a crowd of people outside a long shop.

The sign above the group names the place "Gun Run". Finding a gap in the crowd, we see that inside is a long corridor and players must run at a robot gunslinger. After watching for a bit, Cheshire taps me on the shoulder, "lets have a bet. Who ever gets the furthest in this game gets to treat the loser to a steak dinner." I quickly agree even of that is kinda backwards. I was just thinking of giving the game a go.

Cheshire goes first. On the start, she dashes out of the gate and starts to bob and weave around the bullets. She gets to about the 29 meter mark before she takes a round to the shin.

"Beat that," she says to me with a laugh as she passes. I line up at the gate and have the timer start. I jump up and down to get the adrenaline pumping. Tuning out all noise, I take the position to start sprinting.

On the beep, the gate flew open with me right after it. Using my high sprint, I get to the ten meter mark before the robot unholsters it's pistol.

Seeing that it is aim for my chest, I quickly break to the left, always watching its eyes and gun. As the gun turns, I kick off the wall to get to the opposite side of the hall.

As the gun discharges a burst of three rounds into the recently vacated wall, it reloads. I guess it's double rounds to fire that quickly. This gives me a precious second to get past the 40 meter mark. As the bot snaps the gun shut, it aims for my knees.

Using my acrobatics, I leap into the aim as it fires. Mistake, as I come down, I see the gun positioned at groin level. As I land, I let my legs buckle and send me into a forward roll under the bullets.

Using the reload period, I get to my feet and charge. It aims at my legs again, but not falling for the same trick, I spring onto the wall. Only to have the bot follow immediately and fire.

I kick off the wall hard enough to get my against the upper part of the other wall, just shy of hitting the roof. At this point the bot is aim at groin level and waiting for me to land. sadly for it, i am close to it already. With a heavy spring, I fly across the four meter gap and tackle the bot at the neck, tearing its head off.

There is silence, than the wall blows up and cash flies at me and into my inventory. I get half a million dollars. Ho-ly shit. Laughing with joy, I walk out of the room. Only to be mobbed by the crowds.

They were all shouting at me and cheering. I could not make out a word of any of it. I feel a slender hand grab mine and pull me out of the mob. See that I was leaving, the crowd too disbursed.

Cheshire grabs me and pulls me into an alley. "How the hell did you do all that?!" She said to me with wide eyes.

"Um... I'm a ninja?" I say in a hesitant voice. She bats me on the forehead. "okay fine, I have really high acrobatics and sprint." She continues to look at me like I'm hiding something. "What? I do that stuff all the time in the forests, that's how I train my acrobatics."

"You... You are kind of dumb," she just plainly states.

Laughing, I reply, "and don't deny that you love me for it." She just shakes her head and walks away. Most likely towards where I am taking her to eat. On the way we pass a player merchant carpet. As Cheshire pass, I hear her inhale sharply.

Looking back to see what happened, I see her bargaining with the player that works at the carpet. After five minutes of haggling, she bought what she wanted.

Before I questioned what she bought, she equipped it. It was a simple black dress, something you would wear to a small formal party. But with Cheshire wearing it, it was the most stunning outfit I have ever seen.

She turns and asks me, "how do I look?" Giving me a small and nervous smile.

"Y-you look s-stunning." I stammer out. Voicing my thoughts. Her face turns red. Grabbing my hand and turns back down the street. She pulls me to follow. After walking for a while, we get to a small restaurant.

As we walk in, Cheshire tells me, "I sometimes came here in the beta. This place may not look it, but they have the best steaks. I don't know why." We sit down at one of the many vacant tables in the place. A preppy blond NPC comes up to us with a note pad in hand. We both order a steak dinner and some soda. We soon get it and make small talk for a bit as we eat dinner.

As we are half way done with the meal, the door opens and in comes an unwelcome sight. Standing in the door is the spiky haired man from the first meeting with five of his buddies. Spike guy looks around the room and stop when he lays eyes on us.

He doesn't seem angry though. He looks more like... He found something to amuse himself with. Didn't he remember what we did to him? Strutting over to us, he stops next to our table. "Would you girls like to join me and my friends here for a night at the bar?" He said with an arrogant air around him.

Cheshire and I look at each other and started to laugh. He truly didn't remember us. And he thought I was a girl! Over time however, I started seeing it. As you level agility, your body gets leaner. As being a AGI based fighter, I have most in AGI only some in STR to balance out recoil. With my singing skill, which Cheshire doesn't know of, my voice has gotten lighter. So before I blamed genetics, now I have to kinda blame myself.

Back to the present. Spiky hair is not pleased with the two people laughing at his advances. He says to us in a voice filled with malice and embarrassment, "listen here you bitches. The only reason your able to live like you do is thanks to me and the liberation army."

Hearing the name of the army, we stop giggling immediately. Taking this for being stunned into silence, the man told us arrogantly, "Now that you know that we are your only hope to get out of this game, you'll be happy to service me and my friends here." He gave us a look of pure lust, the same looks are on his team's faces.

I feel my self-control plummet. I stand up and grab him by his throat. I then drag him out of the store before he has time to resist. His team gives us cat calls before they see their Leader's face. I'm currently crushing his windpipe. His eyes are bulging and mouth trying to suck down air, but failing.

Throwing him out of the door, he face plants onto the road. As he gets to his feet, gasping then yelling profanity at me, I issue him a dueling challenge. He looks at me stunned. "You have insulted the integrity of my girlfriend and called me a woman. For that I demand a duel." He quickly accepts, scared to loss even more face in front of his comrades. Who at this point are lined up around us. The duel is under the rules of first headshot. Whoever gets a clean shot to the noggin losses.

I equip my rifle and load my armor piercing rounds. Same goes for my sidearm. As the timer counts down the last five seconds. I get in a position to kick off the ground.

With a ding, the duel begins. I immediately leap to the side and fire off a burst into the challenged man. It rakes up his arm, causing him to drop his weapon with a curse.

As he bends to pick it up, I charge and boot him to the ground. I plant my foot on his throat, similar to how I did with the PKer, and pressed the rifles barrel against his forehead. Squeezing the trigger, I send a single bullet into his head. Fanfare is played as I step off his neck and go to stand with Cheshire, who had come out shortly after the spiky guy's team did.

The man's friends were glaring hate at us while he was trying to get his bearings. As he gets up, he shouts at me, "Your one of those beaters ain't you!"

I glance at Cheshire, seeing she is too confused at the name, I look back at the fool. I start to reply, but give up on the weakling. Shaking my head, I pat Cheshire on the shoulder and, with a turn, walk off. Cheshire following. When we put some distance between us and them, I slow up. "Sorry that I caused our meal to be ruined," I apologized to Cheshire, staring at the ground ahead, angry at the man for interrupting and myself for starting the fight. Even if it was justified.

I see a figure skip in front of me. Looking up, I see Cheshire standing there, hands on her hips. "I don't blame you dummy. It was all on that spiky guy. However, the bet has not been paid," she smirks, "You still owe me a dinner." Smiling, I agree that I'll take her out again soon. We walk back to the teleporter hand in hand.

* * *

A/N - Had to put a battle scene in there! The ham almost killed me last chapter. Would have finished the job if I hadn't had Crow whup someone's ass


	5. Chapter 5

PCheshire - Thanks for the review. I'll try to add more details to stuff in this

Update - Changing Pen name. It is now going to be SmilingJester.

* * *

Five days from that date finds us on the road. Cheshire driving once more. Suddenly she complains, "Christ! I miss the radio!" The buggy did not have anything similar to music players. The game does have a system of recording. A person can buy music in the form of crystals at a "Studio" I have yet to find any I really enjoy. Cheshire hasn't found any either.

An idea strikes me then. I pull out some bungee cables. Locking my torso to the frame, just in case, I pull out my lute. I start to sing a song I recently made up. Bear in mind I am not the next Freddy Mercury or Tolkien.

_In the distance, Click crank is heard from the car,  
__They hear her driving to near from far,  
__The sound of joy rises from trees and mires!  
__Giggling and acting merry,  
__For over the rises comes the fairy,  
__The fairy of Cheshire!_

_But how they erred,  
__For she comes not to bring merriment,  
__But to kill the curs,_ _Those who believe she..._

I am unable to finish the song, for I go flying over the frame and cabin. Cheshire had slammed on the brakes. The bungee cords worked... But not in my favor. They caught me,so I didn't fly across the road. Oh how I wished they were faulty. The cords stopped my body from flying forward, only to bring my face into the hood. Leaving a fair-sized dent.

Sliding face-first off the hood, I hit the ground with a crunch. All through the action, I had my hands up, keeping my lute safe. I believe i could have stopped myself if i didn't care so much about this chunk of wood.

Laying there, dazed and bleeding, for I had crushed my nose and sliced my forehead on something, maybe the tow hook on the front? I hear the door open and feet running towards me. "Oh shit! Are you alright?!" Cheshire calls from what seems like a mile away.

Cheshire finally comes into my view. I see her mouth move, but hear nothing except the ringing in my ears. She leans over me and pushes a potion into my mouth. The liquid drains down my throat. Feeling a little better, I sit up. Only for a blinding headache to erupt. Damn the developers and their attention to detail!

Groaning, I put my head on my knees. I hear a worried voice above my curled form. "Crow, what's wrong?" I slowly tap my head and then point at the hood with the dent. I hear her shift, then gasp, "Oh god! I'm so sorry!" I could only chuckle at my own expense. That had hurt, but imagine what she saw. My flailing body, suplexed into the hood by ropes.

The potion finally reaches my head, so I unsteadily get to my feet. Chucking lightly still, I crawl into the passenger seat. The cut in my head was still bleeding, but slowing. Cheshire gets back into the driver seat. Turning to me, she says, "I didn't mean to do that. You started to play and then I took that turn."

"Ah don't blame yourself. Mostly not your fault. I took safety precautions. Though I think that did more harm than good." I reply, rubbing my healing forehead. Looking up, I see some burned out cars on the road in front of us. "Guess that was a justified brake check." I respond trying to laugh off the incident.

She starts the car and slowly steers around obstacles. After a bit of silence, she starts talking, "I didn't know you knew how to sing and play." Her voice tells me that she is surprised that I'm able to.

She really never figured it out. "Yeah... I have been trying to get better at it, so when I do it around you, your ears don't start bleeding. I decided that my current level is good enough. Thought I'd add a little music to the trip until we find a good crystal set." My art skills have gotten to be around the 350s. My munitions skill is around 400 and smithing 200.

To get the smithing skill that high, I keep fixing our guns. Cheshire tends to melt my barrels. I make incendiary rounds and obviously they create heat. She unloads the clips quickly and rapidly, so the barrel just melts. I have taken to just carry a fresh barrel whenever we go out. I'm also the emergency money guy. When ever we get low on dollars, I would sell some of my bullets. Front-liners always want AA rounds. The mobs have annoyingly hard shells on the higher sectors. The incendiaries also sell well.

Personally, I don't use the incendiary rounds. Good old fashion FMJ and AA rounds for me. I do however stock on non lethals. I don't want to kill anyone again. That is something that I hope I never do again.

Staring out the side into the forest, I see something strange. A forest-covered cave entrance. I've been to a few secret dungeons in the beta, but this. This I have no idea existed.

"Wait Cheshire there's a cave!" I cry. She quickly stops. She steers us into the woods. She turns off the car and takes the keys. The car can't be moved or started without the keys. We hide the vehicle with a camo tarp we bought with the car.

Equipping our gear, we set out. Getting to the cave, we put on our helmets with the flash lights on them. Cheshire takes point. We enter the small cave. I realize the walls are way to close for my rifle, so sling my weapon around my back and draw my pistol.

We advance a ways in. We get into the main room. A room filled with AI bandits. The first human set of enemies. They are only supposed to be on the tenth and up. Not the ninth.

The group all turn to us and pull out their weapons. Some have assault rifles, some shotguns, and some with subs. I throw Cheshire behind a nearby rock formation and unload my pistol into the crowd. Five shatter into the death crystals.

Diving behind the rocks with Cheshire, I am reassured by the death of those bandits. We are still a much higher level than the average mob on this floor. The same goes for these too.

Pulling out the rifle, I blindly unload my magazine into the crowd. Following my lead, Cheshire does the same. Screams of pain rise from the ranks of enemies. Glancing past the rock, I see men stumbling around with holes throughout their bodies. The blood around the wound raging with fire. A few shatter from the effect of the fire.

Leaning back into cover when dust clouds burst in front of me, I make a plan. Reloading my weapons, I draw my pistol. Out also comes two concussion grenades. I wave the explosives in front of Cheshire.

She nods and grabs one of the grenades. I give her a countdown from ten, so she have time to reload. "Three...two... ONE!" On one, I pull the pin and hurl it over head. Followed by Cheshire's.

BANG!

I pop from cover and sight my first target. _Pft_. Next target. _Pft_. I continue to do this with Cheshire also sweeping the floor with fire. After a few minutes of battle... slaughter... The cavern is cleared within several minutes. As I sneak up and finish the last cowering NPC, my hair falls in front of my eyes. I missed the first shot. but quickly unloaded the rest of the magazine into his back. I blow my hair out of my face. It was starting to get longer. I don't really want to cut it, so i just pull it into a ponytail and tie it back. Once the hair thing is situated, Cheshire and I begin the search around the cavern for loot.

The search bore fruit and I found a POWERFUL M-4. I fall to my knees holding this new weapon. I hug it, then equip the attachments to it. Looking back at the stash, I find some empty clips for this rifle.

Luckily I was using the standard 30 round mags for my L85, so I just take them and slap a full one in my new gun. I stand and see Cheshire just waiting. "What? Don't deny you would hug an MP5 if you found one." I tell her, defending my actions. She gives me an amused and dazzling smile, then motions with her head to the left. I see a door.

I go over with Cheshire and ready my weapon. Nodding to Cheshire, I step in front of the door and with my STR, smash the door open. In rushes Cheshire. I quickly follow. As I enter the room, a rock slides down behind me. Fire erupts on both sides of the room we have entered.

One wall rises and in walks a heavily armored man. "So some more prey has arrived." He says through his mask. I chamber a taser round. As he goes to continue, I shoot him in the exposed neck. He locks up and Cheshire opens up.

He starts to shake from the impacts. The health bar appears. He has five. His name also arrives "The King of the Forest". As the first salvo ends. He has lost one bar.

Reloading, pull some fragmentations and tossed them. They explode between his legs and the shrapnel rip through the weak part of the armor. The king lost two more bars from the grenades. This guy is rather weak. Or we are just way to powerful for him.

The king threw his unused rifle away and hauled out a mini gun. From the box. It was not the .22 type. Damn. He swings the weapon while spinning the barrels, then fires.

I charge forward and with my rifle, I block the sweeping turret. With every spin, sparks fly as the metal of the barrel strikes my new gun. Cheshire runs up next to me and presses her gun against the king's head and fires a clip into his eye.

Her gun goes clicks. Turning to tell her to get back, I see her rear back and slam the stock of the submachine gun into the boss's face. A look of surprise is etched on the boss's face as he shatters into pieces.

"NICE!" I cry out to Cheshire, laughing. I give her a victory hug, which consists of my grabbing her and swinging us around in circles until I almost fall over, when I end the embrace, I ask, "What did you get?" She opened her inventory, scrolled down, then materialized something.

In her hand is a gas mask. "It's just a standard gas mask. Not even a good one," she says. When she goes to put it away, canisters drop down from the roof. Oh what the hell.

The canisters open and out comes bio gas. A high leveled poison. Cheshire panics. She starts to bull charge the rock that we came from. It was still there and didn't look like it was moving anytime soon. I grab her to keep her still, then grab the mask from her hands with my free hand and push her face into it.

I run to the room the king came out of and frantically search for an escape route. No king should be trapped in a room with only one way out. At least for logic's sake. I hope they thought of that when they programmed this scenario.

The gas had at this point gotten to taken out half my health. Cheshire gives a cry. I look over and she is behind the throne, kicking out something. Going over, I see a small boarded up tunnel.

Tearing off the last of the boards, I crawl through quickly. Eager to get away from the gases. I crawl for a few minutes with Cheshire on my heels. I see a light. At the end of the tunnel. I giggle a little in my head.

Getting to the dull light, I tumble out into a dank room. Closely following me is Cheshire. Getting to my feet, I look around. What I see almost brings me to tears.

All around us are caged and maltreated... Elves. Pointed ears, pale and slender. The classic elf. looking at the locks and see they are standard key locks. I walk up to one and press the suppressed end of my pistol against it.

Firing, I am glad to see the armor piercing rounds destroy the locks. I systematically destroy all the locks. Twelve in all. Stepping back to where Cheshire is standing. I call out, "it's safe. We aren't here to harm any of you." I don't know what is going to happen, but i keep my hand on my holster.

They all step out hesitantly. After seeing that we won't hurt them, they start hugging and cheering. I also see children come out of a cage. Their parents run over to hold their crying children.

A woman breaks off from the group and comes to us. "Thank you. We are the mist tribe of the woods to the west. We have nothing to give you, but our blessing."

She starts chanting. We can't make it out, but it causes us to glow. When she finishes, the glow dies down. I open my stats and see a new skill. It didn't take up anything, just added a new slot for use.

Elf blessing:  
Passive skill

-Increase hearing  
-Dark vision  
-AGI 200%

Cosmetic - Elven ears and bright eyes (Same eye color of avatar)

Wow. Just wow. Looking at Cheshire, I see her ears the same as the elf. About two inches longer and pointy. I open my stat screen again, this time going to my ability score section. It did double my AGI score. I close the menu and hop with all the strength I can muster up. I get a good three feet up. That's really useful.

I look at the elf woman. "Milady, are you and your people going to be okay, and do you have a place to go?"

She smiles, then says, "We are going back home. All thanks to you both." She smiles at us once more and turns to the tunnels. As she start walking, I immediately grab her shoulder. Oh that may be a bad idea.

"Don't! The king gassed the chamber on his death. It's very toxic. Is there any other way out?" She frowns at me, then calls something to the tribe in a language I can't understand. She gets a reply. She walks over to a wall and taps a brick.

The wall collapses and reveals a forest. The elves give a cry and run out, singing and skipping. Their songs are what I dream to be able to sing one day. I imprint their words into my head, so I can try to match them later. I think this could be the only chance of learning the song.

We follow the elves, I have a recording crystal out to keep the song, and after a bit of walking, we find the road. The elves continue across, but we stop at the sight of civilization. Overjoyed at surviving that hectic battle and saving a tribe of people, I act without thinking. I gods how i act without thinking.

I turn and kiss Cheshire on the lips. Her face turns a shade of bright red. A strange look crosses her face. Suddenly, she grabs my collar and pulls me into a fuller kiss. It takes me a moment to return it. I did not expect that reaction.

We reluctantly withdraw from each other. With my face red, I say to her, "want to find the car?" She agrees and we walk hand in hand down the road. Passing the dungeon, we see that it is just a clean mountain face now. Guess it was a one time thing. We easily find the car where we parked it. Still draped in the tarp. Getting in the passenger seat, I'm still wary of the back, we set off back to the town.

* * *

A/N - Don't complain about the bad lyrics people. I need to explain why I used fairies too. I'm not using the Tinkerbell one. I'm using the Celtic mythology kind.

I am basically basing this character off of my personality. I am a rather dumb individual, so keep that in mind while read. The best you can get out of me is a version of a sea shanty and I don't think that would fit in. Oh and Elves muthafuckas! Just had to add them. Also why am I so cheesy? I mean I keep writing it even as I take blows to my balls for it.


	6. Chapter 6

Arriving at the town, we hit up an inn. Paying for our room, we go up and unequip our armor. You know, privacy and what not. We go back out and find a vendor. We buy some grilled sandwiches. This game has other food, but I'm not so trusting of some things they sell. I mean ant eater soup, ew. while eating, I listen to the recording the best I could. With the new ears and my perception, I could have it at a volume where only I can hear it.

After eating, I bring Cheshire with me and search for my new music spot. Using my Elven agility, I spring up and climb onto a roof. I haul Cheshire up for she couldn't jump high enough.

I lay back onto the ground and start singing the Elven song. I remember it word to word somehow. Memory is never my strong point. Cheshire uses my chests as a pillow and listens. As I draw to the end of the verses I know, words fill my head. I continue singing as the lyrics come to me. They for some reason feel natural.

For twenty minutes I sang the song of celebration. Ever word forever imprinted in my mind. As the song draws to a close, the sun starts to set.

We stay on the roof for a few more hours, enjoying the view of the stars. After night has well fallen, we climb down and head back to the inn. As we approach, we see an unwelcome sight in front of the door.

A huge man in armor with sunken eyes. The man who tried to arrest me. He is now wearing a bright white uniform lined in red. He had joined that guild. Knights of the blood or something. The clearing guild of elite soldiers. from my first impressions of the man, I didn't get the impression of a "elite" soldier.

I just casually walk up to him. "Excuse me sir, may we get by?" He looks down to me. Then does something I was dreading. He goes to draw his weapon.

"You! The PKer!" He cries. I backpedal. The person he was talking to, drew her weapons. Duel pistols. She yelled for me to halt.

"Wait wait wait! This is a misunderstanding! The people I killed were PKers that kidnapped my girlfriend!" I explain, still backpedaling. "I was saving her! I even showed mercy to one of them!" I still kind of regret that act, but I like to think myself a nice guy and not some bloodthirsty vigilante, no matter how much the person deserves it.

Cheshire comes up from behind me, "He's telling the truth. He saved me. We tried to explain it to that man, but he shot C-him in the back." Glad she didn't say my name. I dont't really want my name to be spread around as a killer.

The girl seems skeptical, but did lower her weapons. Cheshire relaxes slightly, I don't. The girl starts to talk, "Okay, but we sti-" she is interrupted by her comrade drawing his rifle. He had held off on it as we once again explain. I lunge. Slapping the barrel up, I grab him by the throat and slam him into the wall of the inn.

I rip the rifle out of his hand before he brings it back up. It skips off the ground into the growing crowd. "Now now my new enemy. I again was being civil in my actions and once again you point a gun at me. Now try CALMING YOUR ASS DOWN and speak to me like a normal person. Not a lunatic!"

I slowly release his throat. When he can breathe again, he starts speaking to my dismay, "You are going down. You and that bitch to-" he never finishes, for I smashed his head into the stone wall, knocking him out.

"Okay, lets start over. Come with me ma'am. We'll talk in our room... Leave him please." I open the door and head up to our room. I shut the door behind us as we enter. I pull up a seat and Cheshire and I take the bed.

I recount the tale of the events. Leaving some things out to spare Cheshire from reliving some of the more... terrible moments. The girl, we learned, is named Asuna, says very formally at the end, "I believe your story. I'll just leave you two alone. Sorry for my bodyguards behavior." She stands and leaves the room.

Exhausted, I take off my boots and shirt. I get under the covers. Cheshire soon follows. Curling up next to me, but this time wraps her arms around my chest. I put my arm around her back and relax. We fall into a comfortable sleep.

The next morning, I wake to a message from my contact, Argo. She states where the next boss meeting will be. Luckily it's today in this towns square.

Using the morning until the meeting, I stock us on ammo. I also modify my M-4 with a better gas system and recoil system. Vastly making the firepower increase and the control stay the same.

As I finish, I level up to 250. I begin building the MP5 for sleeping beauty. Cheshire always sleeps in during the days off. I build the barrel out of a metal that can stand up to extreme heat.

I finish just before noon. I wake Cheshire up. Keeping the MP5 behind my back. "Wake up, it's noon and I have a surprise for you."

She sleepily lifts her head. Her hair a mess. She looks adorable. "Wha-" she gets out of bed, stretches and throws on her clothes. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she looks up at me. "Did you blow yourself up again?"

Chuckling, I bring the new gun out from behind my back. Cheshire's eyes light up. Squealing, she hugs me, "Thank you, thank you!" I hand her the gun. She looks at the stats of the weapon.

Since I made it, I knew it was far better than her current UMP. Nearly the same power as the unmodified M-4 I'm carrying. I hand her the new incendiaries filled magazines. She loads and slings the weapon.

We walk out to the square, with some hats on, just as the meeting started. Diabel the blue haired "knight", calls out, "Okay everyone let's get this meeting started! The knights have found the new boss!" He gestures to a tall man in steel armor. A big red cross on the chest piece. Heathcliff. The man stands and we start planning. The boss is a human bandit that has backup of elite bandits. We are to split up into guild parties. The backup will be all those without any guild. So Cheshire, I, and some young guy decked in black.

Walking over to the young man, I ask if be wants to party up with me. He agrees and joins me. His name, according to his health bar, is Kirito. He uses a strange loadout. A pistol and a sword of energy. I don't question it. If he's here, then he knows what he's doing. The meeting ends and we all go back to train or do whatever. Cheshire and I go and practice with our new guns. To regain the old feel of the recoil.

We trudge back to the square at four in the afternoon. It turns out that we are the last to arrive. Receiving some glares and handing a few out, we take our places in the back. We are taking transport trucks to the boss room which is about five miles away. Hoping in the truck back, the misfit truck. I find that I have gotten into a possibly bad situation. Sitting next to Kirito is the knight lass. Asuna.

The trucks go forward. After tense greetings, we all sit in an awkward silence. Everyone seems to on edge do to the impending battle. I need something to sing to cool the air. This tension is not helping my nerves. A song comes to my mind. It's in elvish once again. I somehow know it's a song for battle. Weird... I always believed that elves were peace-loving people.

I quietly sing this new tune. In front of me, Cheshire smirks, closing her eyes, she focus on the ballad. Closing my eyes, letting the song flow, keeping my voice down, I continue the ballad. As the song ends, I open my eyes. A message pops up in front of me. From other people in the truck reaction, they did too.

Song of everlasting battle:  
"The gods of war has blessed the performer of this ballad and their audience with power of the Elven soldier."

Accuracy - + 10%  
Speed - + 10% AGI  
Camouflaged - unseen to the enemy until player takes hostile action

Duration - 30 minutes

Oh... We are going to move at lightspeed, oh joyous day. The trucks stop as I finish reading the buff. The time of battle draws near. The song has put me in great mood. Grinning like a mad man, I hop down from the back and form up in rank with the rest of the clearers.

The guild leaders give a few short speeches, then open the door. We all charge in. Cheshire and I pass most everyone with our agility. The room is similar to the kings room. In the middle of the floor is "The Bandit King" original.

I break left and Cheshire right. The main force was still rooming into the room as I opened up on the support bandits. The bandits are bombarded with rounds. The look of surprise on their face as an enemy appeared from thin air.

As I draw near, my rifle clicks empty. Without breaking stride, I flip the rifle, so my hands are on the barrel. Drawing to melee range, I spin and bring the rifle up from below. Taking him at the chin. Causing the target to burst into crystals.

I quickly sling the rifle and draw my pistol. The bandit closest is within spitting distance. I lunge forward and press the barrel against his head. Pft. I line up the next and finish the five before anyone knows what has happened. Looking back, I see Cheshire has faired the same as myself. Sidearm up in empty space where a head once was. "Satchels Cheshire!" I pull out some heavy ordnance I made and chuck them at the boss. Within the bags are land mines and other powerful devices. I run, I reload both my weapons. There is a monstrous explosion behind me as Cheshire sinks an incendiary round into one of the satchels.

Looking back, I saw that half of the boss's health is gone. Returning my attention forward. I see the guilds staring. "Don't just stare, you fucking morons! He's not dead yet! Finish him!" I command as I slow to a jog next to Cheshire. To Cheshire, I say something only we can hear. "Nice one Chesh. You okay?"

She gives me her dazzling smile and nods. The main fighting force charges past us. We go over to a wall and sit down. Letting the main forces do their job. Cheshire turns to me with a question on her face, "How did you know that song in the truck?"

How did I? I come up with a likely idea. "Here's what I believe. Since we control everything with our mind, the game must be tapping into our head. I guess the system just gave my mind the song because of the whole elf business we are in." At the mention of elves, I remove my helmet. The Kevlar was pressing my new ears against my skull. Not the most comfortable thing.

Cheshire stares at them, then removes her own helmet. "Yeah, that's probably it. They are still sweet though," she replies. we sit there listening to the gunfire and smelling the gunpowder in the air. The fight takes fifteen minutes with only one serious wound. Some guy took a round of the boss's gun to the chest. He's getting bandaged in the corner. A screen pops in front of me. I leveled up twice.

I distribute my skills. The guilds are still celebrating. Turning, I grin at Cheshire, she returns the grin. I hear heavy footsteps approach. Looking up, I see Heathcliff with his weapons at his side. A shield with a red cross on it, it reminds me of Captain America, and a silver plated deagle. "Well done you two. I would like to invite you to join my guild." He sends us both an invite.

I deny it at the same time Cheshire hits the x button. "Sorry Captain. We don't want to join a guild." The man seems taken aback by this. we dicided this a while back. Wanting our freedom to do things our way.

Trying to convince us, he starts to tell us the perks, "If you join us, there is the benefit of protection from PKers. No group wants us as their enemy. We also have standard pay for your jobs."

Cheshire breaks in, "we appreciate it, but we like to do our own thing. Plus we don't need any military job. If we are ever hard up for money, Crowy here just builds and sells people guns." She smirks at the end using a pet name for me. On a side note, I have almost never had to build anyone a gun. My ammunition sell well enough.

I add, "Don't worry there, Captain Japan. We will still fight in most boss fights." I say most because sometimes, I plan to take a break and not risk my neck in a battle to the death with some badass monster.

He seems to give up, but as he turns, he does a double take of our ears, "How did you come by those ears?" Took him awhile to see them didn't it.

I explain, "We freed some Elven prisoners from some dick up the road a mile or two and the lady of the tribe blessed us for it. Got to say, didn't expect to see elves in a gun game that prides itself on realism." Heathcliff just nods and leaves to join up with his guild. Muttering something about a guy named Jeff.

Next Kirito comes over. Cheshire greets him, "Hello man, saw you fight. That was some impressive stuff you pulled." I saw his battle, he twirled around that boss and destroyed him. The guilds would still be fighting if he hadn't been there.

"I came over to congratulate and thank you guys for that opening and the buff. The bandit had no idea what hit him." We talked for a bit after that, then the young man left to go check out the new area. We follow him.

The walls open and we see a giant forest. Filled with mist. The new sector is called the misty forest. I knock my hand against Cheshire's shoulder. "Want to see if we can find the tribe again, see how they are doing?" I ask her in a whisper only she could make out. She agrees, but tomorrow. We summon the car using the keys. A feature I recently learned. By recent, I mean last night. Usually we just return to town and pick up the buggy after a night's rest.


	7. Chapter 7

ViolatedMonkey - Thanks for the ideas and names. Naming things always take me far too long (I.E. an hour staring at a blinking line)

* * *

Hopping in the passenger's seat, no reason to mount up, we take off to the north. After bobbing and weaving through the trees for an hour. We arrive at the tenth sectors north town. Cheshire goes to rent a room, while I check out the market scene.

After looking around a bit, I find a back alley store. Going in, I see that it is a munitions supply store. Walking up to the NPC, I greet her, "Evening madam. Does your shop hold any schematics?" I ask that last part on an impulse. I have gone a hundred levels without new rounds. All that I am unlocking are some grenades. Poison, tear gas, and a few others. Must be someway to craft more.

She reply to the question, "Yes we do sir," Cool even though I have been here for months, the AI still impresses me. "We have the blueprints for X-rounds. A bullet that upon impact, discharges two small blades into the target." I pause... Daddy needs.

I purchase the blueprints for a tenth of my funds. I activate it and learn how to build it. It requires many more parts, then my most advanced shots. The success rate is around 70%. Damn. I always thought that only explosives have the probability of failure. And that can be negated if I look over the ingredients. I hope it's the same for the new bullets.

While I was there. I purchase an abundance of blades and the other pieces. I have learned that the more you build, the higher the rate goes. I head to the room Cheshire picked by using friend finder. Knocking, I let myself. Party members can open each others inn rooms.

I set up shop in a corner. Cheshire's on the bed organizing her inventory. I begin my new project. After three hours. Have finally finish my first hundred rounds. Half for me and half for Cheshire. My crafting skill leveled up another twenty levels. These bullets were HARD to make! Cheshire has already turned in for the night. I join her in the comfort of sleep.

The next afternoon finds us walking the forest, listening for the elves. We try to avoid the mobs of the floor, but they are of the canine variety and sniff us out. We quickly execute the dogs. Our level already equaling the toughest of creatures on this floor. We are still ten levels above the rest of the players.

Taking a lunch break. I dig into some of Cheshire's excellent cooking. Quickly finishing the bowl, I lean back, pulled out my lute, started playing and singing the first thing that comes to head. For some reason, the song "Johnny, I hardly knew ya" is what came out.

By the end, Cheshire is clapping her hands to the fast paced and upbeat rhythm and laughing her head off. I couldn't keep the laugh at of my voice as I finish the song. The lyrics aren't funny, but her laugh was too infectious to not laugh with her. The band I was copying the style from is an old American band "Dropkick Murphys" and they had a "unique" rendition of the song. As I put the lute away, my perception skill picks up a presence behind us. Whipping out my pistol, I twirl around and level the weapon at the being behind us.

I was taken aback. It was a grinning elf. "Greeting forest dweller," I said once I recognized the creature. I bow. As I come back up from the bow, I notice that the elf in front of us is the tribe leader. "Sorry. Greetings milady," I correct myself.

She spoke with a fuller voice than what she had before, I also notice that she looks much healthier then the other day, "No need for such formalities from our saviors. I must apologize for intruding, but I heard song and was curious." Man. The AI in this game is great.

"No harm done. We were actually looking for your tribe. We were wondering if everything was okay and everyone safe." She smiles and tells us everyone's fine and marked the position on our maps in case we ever want to come by. We share our farewells and head back to our homes.

An idea strikes me, I tap Cheshire on the shoulder, "Hey Chesh, I never took you out for that dinner I owed ya. Would you like to go somewhere fancy today?" She quickly agrees. We get to the inn. She goes in and cleans up. After finishing, I follow her lead and do the same.

I step out in my casual cloth and see Cheshire in her dress. I tell her I'll be right back and head over to the market rickety-split. I find the store in a minute. A dress store. I buy a nice dress shirt and pants. Equipping them, I head back. Should have done that a while ago. At most I was gone for five minutes.

"Sorry for the wait, couldn't go to dinner with such a beautiful date wearing some rags now can I?" She grins at this and we head off. Into the teleporter, we arrive at the plaza, she starts to lead me to her desired eatery. This time, she leads us to a fancy looking restaurant.

"I heard this place is good. It's run by some players that have nearly maxed cooking skills," Cheshire explains to me. We head in and are escorted to a seat by a player. So this is what people do when they don't fight. Be an employee of some restaurant, be it a fancy one, still an employee.

A female with green hair comes over. She speaks in a way to overly perky voice for a waiter, "Welcome! Here's the menu! What can I get you to dri-... What happened to you guys ears?" She cuts herself off with the question.

Cheshire tells the girl, "A quest." Simple as that. After that, we order our meal. While waiting, Cheshire starts to quietly hum "Johnny, I hardly knew ya" absently. When I start chuckling, she notices. This causes her to turn red from embarrassment.

I chuckle out, "Catchy, isn't it." She agrees. Our meal shows up a few minutes later. We were able to finish our meal without any unpleasantness this time around. Huzzah! We pay for our food, that steak costed as much as my beginning gun set. Wow... anyway, we head back to the front lines for the night.

We turn down an alleyway to get to the transporter to get back to the forest. Out steps three players, two were orange and one red, from a side section. They draw crappy pistols. I mean, they picked that old Luger design. The one where it jams with every other shot.

Pointing at them at us, they sneer out, "Give us all your money bitches!" Cheshire looks at me and I look at her. We burst out in a fit of laughter and continue to move forward. These little weaklings in no way scares us. I mean, we fight giant bugs and lizards all day.

One of the thugs, the red one, then says something that I did not expect, "Wait, I know you! You're that girl that me and my old crew messed around with! Haha! Yeah! Where's your boyfriend now you cunt?! It's just you and your gay friend here now!" Cheshire halts in front of me. Oh shit. The man steps up and makes a grab at her face.

I sprint around her and seize the bastard by the neck. I drag him kicking and cursing through the street. Pistol in hand. When his pals tried to stop me, I shoot them. The safe zone kept them healthy, but it sent them flying from the gun's power. This scares them off and they flee with their tails between their legs. The crowds parted in front of me. They are those non-players, probably are scared of guns. We approach the exit. The man finally realizes what I'm about to do.

He starts trying to scream for help, but I tighten my grip, cutting off his airway. We exit the zone. A crowd of people behind me. I throw him to the dirt. Cheshire is next to me. Unscrewing the suppressor, I fire a burst above the crowd. This scares away a good many of them. I twirl the gun around and offer Cheshire the grip. She slowly takes the gun and points it. Even though she is shaking violently, She holds the gun steady and brings it to level with the man's head. As the hammer slams down, I slap my hand in front of the barrel.

The bullet rips through my flesh. Oh gods that hurt! Damn game and having low pain absorption. I don't let the pain show on my face. A feat of willpower I didn't know I had in me. The bullet catches the young man in the upper torso. Sending him into the red zone. Pathetic.

I take the gun, spin Cheshire around, then execute the man who sexually assaulted her. I couldn't let Cheshire have killing a person on her conscience. I was testing her convictions. The sound of shattering glass fills the air, along with the scream of a few people in the remaining crowd.

I grab Cheshire's hand and lead her into the woods. Away from the field that the man died in. When we are hidden from sight. I embrace Cheshire. Her control crumbles and she starts weeping onto my shirt, while crushing me in a death grip. I stroke her hair as we stand there, trying to calm her down. I think of how I just mercilessly executed the man. I didn't feel much guilt for what I did. The man was a killer and had hurt my best and only friend greatly. The only guilt was that of the standard soul crushing kind I got when I killed any players. Just not as intense as before.

As she regained her composure, we broke apart. I pull two of the few crystals I have in my pocket. Teleport crystals. I hand one to Cheshire. She quietly mumbles the name of the town we are staying. I follow suit. I see her walking slowly back to our room. Easily catching up to her, we silently go to bed.

Cheshire didn't leave the bed or eat for two days. I stayed by her side the entire time trying to get her to eat to no success. On the third day she got up. She was still obviously upset, but says she just wants to take her mind off things, so we head out a destroy some mobs. I keep a watchful eye on her the entire time. I dont regret killing the man, but I've shot myself in the leg multiple time for having her be in the presence of the murder.

* * *

A/N - May be a while until I post more. I write in bursts. This was the first set. I am continuing so please bear with me


	8. Chapter 8

It took Cheshire three weeks to return to normal. In this time, the eleventh sector is unlocked. I gained three more levels and Cheshire four. The new skill we both got was [Battle healing]. To level we have to get hurt. A lot, so not going out of my way to level that one up. I have gotten in my ways with it by knee capping myself whenever Cheshire starts to act gloomy.

Sighing after finishing off the last of the lizard men we were fighting, I reload my rifle. Grinding has become a boring chore. Even if shooting is fun, the excitement falls after doing it for a half-year. Every day. From the look on my partner's face, she feels the same way.

"Want to take tomorrow off? After we kill the mini-boss I mean." I asked her. I've noticed that I have become increasingly lazy the more time I spend here.

She finishes slapping a clip in her weapon. "Sure, but first, yeah, we got to finish this little quest, don't get lazy on my again," she says in a joking manner. The quest is to kill x number of lizard men, then the leader of the scaly creatures. We still have about 59 more lizards to kill before we go to the boss.

The sound of our gunfire echoes the area around us. We are now on the newest sector. It is a desert type area. Hot, humid, and over all uncomfortable. I've taken off my upper body clothing to try to cool off. Leaving on my armor obviously. I may be hot, but I know from personal experience getting shot without armor on SUCKS!

Cheshire has taken off her jacket and such, leaving her with just a white undershirt and her own Kevlar vest. There are a few silver linings to this heat. Whats not a silver lining is how we stalled out the car the other day and had to get a mechanic to fix it. The repairs should be finished in a week and probably cost half the cars value.

As I destroy the last of the men, it hurled it's spear in desperation at us, lucky day for myself. I happen to be standing in the path of said spear. Taking it full to the chest, I am flung onto my ass by the force. A large chunk of my health with it.

After sitting there for a bit and biting back tears. I pull the spear out. Health in low yellow. I wait for my battle healing to fill up my health. Thanks to the bleeding effect, it takes ten minutes. In this time, Cheshire killed another group solo, so when I have the health, we can just skip our way to the boss.

No surprise, the boss is a giant lizard man. Yeah... it makes sense, but come on, be original. Like say they were led by a stone gargoyle that they worshiped as one of their gods. Anyway, with the combination of our speed, firepower, and my explosives, we easily make this creature bow its head in defeat.

As we head back to the town we are currently staying at, where the quest giver is too stationed, I sing the song of celebration to pass the time. As I finish up with the ballad, I notice we are an out fifteen steps from the quest giver. That... went longer then usual. "Yo Cheshire. Did I add a few more verses into that?"

She looks at me strangely, "Yeah, like ten I've never headed before. What? You didn't notice?" I nod to her. The lyrics no longer are fed into my head, I just kind of get lost in the song. Singing what comes to my mind. I would be worried, but I like the music it gives me.

She shakes her head at me in disappointment. We push open the door to the quest and turn it in. In return for creating a mini genocide of the lizard men, we got money and armor. Scale armor to be precise. It has double the defense our current armor has.

Slipping on the new armor, I immediately notice how the armor is in the form of an opened vest. There is no way to close it either. Scales are not the most "stretchy" material. Why? This may have defense, but if I take a gut shot, it'll still punch through me. Oh well, accepting the new armor in patient strides, we head out of the store. Next thing we do is hunt for our lunch in the crowded area. Finding some soup, one that is not remotely insect based. We eat under the shade of a tall palm tree.

Finishing my soup, I bust out my lute. I need to relax or I'm going to start jumping across rooftops like a madman from the energy I have built up in my with having a full stomach.

I start singing my own rendition of the song "Song of the Lonely Mountain" from an old movie, "The Hobbit." I accompany the song with my lute. Playing notes that flow with the song. Since the game gods want me to sound like a girl, the song no longer sounds like a hobbit song it. More along the lines of an elf. Well I am an elf now anyways, so I guess it fits.

It sort of sounds fits. As I finish, I hear an uproar of applause. Wait what?! Looking up from the lute, I see a rather large crowd of people gathered around us. Flinching back, I look over at Cheshire. She has a big grin on her face.

Narrowing my eyes at her, I quietly demand why she didn't stop me. "Well it was nice to hear and knew you would react like this." As she talks, I can hear her desperately trying not to burst out laughing. I put away my lute. Hoping the crowd sees that I'm done. They don't. Well shit.

Some of them even get a crystal out and takes our picture. What the hell are they doing? I tap Cheshire's shoulder, "Lets get out of here." She slowly nods, starting to also get annoyed at the growing attention. I do a quick spin. We are surrounded. However, a short figure catches my eye. A small man in bulky armor. Nodding my head towards him while looking at Cheshire, she quickly picks up on my plan.

Without any warning, we dash towards the small man. I'm up front, picking a shoulder and use it to vault over the crowd. Getting much more air then Cheshire would be able to, I reached a nearby roof that was a few meters away. I catch myself and haul my body up. Spinning around, I take Cheshire's incoming hand and drag her up beside me. We soon clear a dozen more houses.

Cheshire may not have the acrobatics skill, but her agility makes up for most of it. Dropping down in an alley, we head out to grind some more. Secretly, I just didn't want to be found by that crowd again.

We stop our never-ending gun fight at four in the morning. The night vision the elves gave us is amazing! It's like it's daylight out at dusk and dusk at the darkest part of the night. Plus with Cheshire's wanting to cook us dinner, we didn't even have to stop by the town until now. The nights are way to dangerous to sleep under, so we head to get a room.

The rooms are still 100 bucks a week. No one-night stays for some insane reason. They still have the bare layout as always. Just a bed, shower, and night stand. Stepping into our room, we immediately sought the bed. It has been a long day.

BING! A loud noise wakes me from my slumber. Groaning, I sit up to see what's the source. Opening my eyes, I find that Argo has messaged me. At six in the morning. Crazy girl! I angrily open the message. I immediately pale.

Inside is a letter saying;

Crow, What the hell boyo... Or girlo! Why didn't you tell me you were really a girl! And a slut at that.

The next item that made the whole thing bad is a video recording. I open it and see my performance. That isn't the worse part. I look like a girl with no clothes on but a vest of red scales. The heading for the video is just another punch to the lower regions. "Half naked girl sings in 11th floor plaza"

Unable to contain myself, I yell out, "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" I pound my fist into my forehead. Cheshire quickly sits up from the noise I was making.

"Wha-! What's going on?!" I make the letter and video visible to her. In her sleep deprived state, it takes her a few reads and watches to understand what happened. Then she busts out laughing, "Ahahaha! Oh god! Now everyone will think you're a girl!"

It's not that funny. Sighing in self-pity, I flop back down. Soon I'm back to sleep. No need to lose sleep over something I can't control. Even if it is kind of my fault, to my infinite hate.

Bang...bang...BANG! The door went as someone itching to die beat on it. Checking to see if Cheshire was still next to me. She is. Who the hell could this be then? I get up and shuffle to the door. Looking at the in-game clock, it's 8:30. By Odin, let me sleep.

I get to the door just as the banging resumed. Throwing the door open, I cried, "For fuck sakes! People are fucking sleeping!" Heathcliff is standing in my door. "What you want man?!"

"I'm here to talk to you about that video. Have you seen it?" He asks. Growling out an exhale, I gesture for him to come in. Wait Cheshire's naked. As he walks in, I put a hand on his chest.

"Hold," I close the door. Going over to the bed, I shake Cheshire's shoulder, "Time to wake up, someone's here for something." She mumbles out something that sounded like castration and dogs. Uh... "Heathcliff is here, we're going to talk in this room. Um... And you are sort of naked at the moment." She punched out and clocked me between the eyes. Fine be that way.

Going back to the door, I open it and invite the man in. Closing the door behind me, I go and sit at the foot of my bed, letting the man remain standing. "What about the video has you coming to find me?"

He seems to hesitate before he continues, "We can't have that kind of image in the front lines. If people get an idea that we all just slack around and being... inappropriate instead of helping clear the game, then no one will join us in the battles."

I sit there stunned for a minute. I hear giggling behind me. Without turning around, I call back, "Quiet Chesh." Heathcliff finally seems to notice Cheshire in bed. He should get his eyes checked. "Heathcliff, What I was doing was not 'inappropriate,' I was singing a song I rather enjoyed and didn't notice the growing crowd."

"A girl can't just be shirtless in a crowded plaza! That IS inappropriate! You should have more respect for yourself as person! One that is also supposed to being a role model!" I can just feel all the blood vessels in my eyes pop. They can't really, but I bet I'm crying blood in the real world.

"Are you really that stupid?! Take a fucking look at me!" I was wearing just my pajama pants. "Do I look like a bleeding girl?!" He finally noticed my lack of clothing. Wow... the leader of the elites is blind as a bat.

From behind comes a light, but firm voice, "Role model my ass. What about that spiky guy we keep seeing. That guys a douche. Why don't you get on his case?!" I shift to look at Cheshire. She was sitting up ... and didn't have anything on.

"Chesh... Clothing mate," I quietly say to her. She squeaks and pulls the covers up to hide her body. Laughing at the scene, I put my attention back on Heathcliff, "Okay, now you have something else to do. Make spike-spike not be an ass. Now leave, we need our sleep. There are places to be and monsters to kill and we need our beauty sleep."

On his way out, he tells us that the boss has been found and there is a meeting in town at one to discuss how to beat it. I close the door. Crawling back into bed, we both fall back to sleep. This time with no further interruptions. Thank the goddess and all other deities that allowed us to sleep in.

Waking up refreshed, I check the time. 12:30 pm. Whoops, that was a close one. Waking Cheshire up, I get dressed and head out to the plaza. I'm wearing full gear with my helmet. I really should invest in some kind of Kevlar hat or something. This helmet is so uncomfortable.

Most of the people were already there. The spike-spike guy is here, Kirito, the Knights, and any other soloers or guilds that wants to join in the fun. We take a seat in the back and wait for the briefing. Soon Diabel walks up onto the stage and calls for our attention. Once it is provided, he goes on with the planning. The boss is to be a flying creature. From his description, it would be like one of those Chinese dragons. Snake body with thick scales and no visible wings. Diabel again makes us the support. Kirito is joining the main battle unit this time around.

Killing time, I go and train my skills in the field. I just find a shaded _hidden_ area and play increasingly faster and harder songs. Cheshire stayed for a bit to listen, but went to try and level her cooking some more. After a particularly fast melody. I stop and rest my fingers, checking out if I have leveled up any. I have twice. That puts me in the 390's area. Well now that, that is done, I activate my hide skill and start stalking enemies. This is the way I have found to level the skill up. In forested areas, I stay in the treeline though. The desert however has a distinct lack of trees, so that's out.

I keep up the training until late in the evening. Would have continued into the night, but I need to get a night of sleep if we are going to go beat in the boss's scaly face.

The noon's sun finds us in the plaza of the desert outpost. The knights have provided the transport to the boss room this time around. We are once again, assigned to the back truck. Hopping into the back of said truck began an awkward period for us both. Inside of said truck is a bandit looking young man with his crew. I believe his name is Klein. Once we set foot in the bed, he introduced himself in a pathetic attempt to get a girlfriend. First to Cheshire who is just confused as all hell, then to me.

After introducing himself, all I could do was laugh and answer him back, "I don't think I'm your type Mr. Small." He seems to not get either of what I just said to him. I'll just say it outright, "I'm a dude mate."

He just slumps forward, groaning. From his low position, he asked me, "Why did you call me Mr. Small? Is it to insult my manhood?" I couldn't help but let loose a laugh.

"Huh? Nah man, you really don't know your name is German for small?" Klein face-palms and flops back onto the seats. We take ours and the truck began the journey. Summoning the lyrics to the song of battle, I start to recite the song. As we pull up to the arena we are fighting in, I draw the song to an end.

The buff message pops up and Cheshire and I dismount. We again form up in the back of the ranks of players. The leader once again try to motivate the soldiers with promises of escape from the game. They repeat this promise almost every fight.

We all slowly march in. No running up and blowing shit up for this guy. The boss was an airborne creature, so I think that our attempt to disable him with explosives are low. We stay in the back of the group and wait for the beast to arrive.

The room has an open roof. There are many pillars erect in the arena that we are standing in. From behind the farthest pillar, an ear-splitting roar is heard. Well for me. Out from behind the pillar slithers the creature. The description we got is accurate. It is about thirty feet long. Red scales, with a white underbelly. It does however have wings. Which it opened and took to the air at the sight of our raiding party. It gracefully flew circles around us.

The players around us opened fire on the mystical creature. As the bullets strike it's scales, it dive bombs the group. I've played enough fantasy to know that this it is probably going to breathe fire down. As we scatter behind the various pillars, it does just that. Fire rains down on the fleeing players.

Everyone makes it to semi-safety. Only suffering minor burns if they were to slow. The gun fire resumes. I join in the target practice. We slowly whittle down the thing's health. As the final bar is reached, something unexpected happened. The pillars around us sink into the ground. The one cover we had in an otherwise opened field, just disappeared with a pissed off dragon strafing the grounds with fire.

Panic sets into the party. The dragon swoops down and takes up a player into his mouth. A loud crunch resounds the area as the dragon bit the man in half. Crystals rain down from the sky as his cries of agony and terror were cut off with death. This insisted pure chaos in the ranks. Players whipped out crystals and left, while others fled the field. When all was said and done. There was only ten of us remaining.

The leaders of the guilds. Kirito, Asuna, some brave souls, and us. My suicide plan from the Kobold came to mind again. Burying that thought deep down for now. I continue to fire and dodge the dragon. No need to kill try to kill myself unless I really have too. I do, however, have the brick of explosives ready to be equipped.

The fire continues to rain from the sky as the remain soldiers frantically dive out of the way. The speed of the attacks are increasing the longer we battle. Unexpectedly, the dragon crashed to the ground and slithered at high-speed across the short distance away from the party and charges us.

Taking a glancing hit, my health plummets. That alone nearly took out a third of my health. Another player wasn't as lucky as me. He takes a full hit from the boss and explodes into glitter. With a mighty flap of his leathery wings, the great beast takes to the air once more. This thing needs to die.

"Cheshire! Hold this for me!" I slap the detonator in her hand. She gazes at it for a second.

She whips her head up and cries into my face, "Fuck no, you fool! You don't even have a knife!" Giving her a grin, I break from the group, firing my gun into the air.

"Come on you fucking pussy! Come at me!" I whip out my pistol and fire it into the general direction of the dragon. After a few seconds, the boss turns around in its flight. The lizard falls from the noon sky towards me. It slams against the ground and rushes me. Mouth gaping, hunger in its eyes.

This is stupid.

I break into a run at it. As it reaches me, I jump. I jump as high as I can and drop the brick. It falls down the beast throat as his upper lips crashed into my shins. Cart wheeling through the air, I see the dragon pass under me. As I hit the ground, it takes to the air hopefully for the last time. As I lay there in pain, I watch as its stomach blew open and it died.

A screen appeared in front of me, telling that I leveled and got a last attack item. Weakly, I dismiss the screen. As the text box fades, I hear the pounding of feet towards my prone body. Someone slides down next to me. "Crow, oh Jesus, Crow your legs!"

I weakly bring my head up and see that I was indeed missing both my legs. Both cut off at the knee. "Oh..." is all the response I give. Cheshire digs around in her bag and pull a red crystal. She draws it back and... Bitch slaps me with it. It breaks and heals me to tip-top shape, but that still hurt.

"I told you not to do that! And you went ahead and did!" She rants as I get slowly onto my new legs. They feel like they are asleep. Cheshire was going to continue, but I start laughing like a maniac. I survived yet again. This was a close one, but I'm still alive. Cheshire just cracks a grin at me and helps me steady myself.

Captain Japan comes over and thanks me in the most formal way possibly. It just did not seem that sincere and made him come off as a prick. After all the celebrations were done, we decided to continue onto the next floor. I guess we both are eager to get out of this heat.


	9. Chapter 9

The twelfth sector is a ruined city... Shit this could be dangerous. We summon the car. The repairs had cost us quite a bit of cash. As we drive through the city, I am constantly looking around, expecting an ambush of some kind. After an hour of weaving through stalled traffic and rubble, we find a painted sign telling the outpost for the floor is in the subways. We park our car in a store and drag some shelves in front of it. Once that is settled, we head a few blocks up and into the subway.

We soon find a system of houses and tunnels. We find the one marked as the inn and rent a room. It was 75 bucks. Walking in, we realized why. They had the same things in it as the others, bed, shower and the like. However, they were all shit made. Looking to be held together by ducktape and nails that protruded out.

Sighing, I put my gear back in my inventory and equipped my casual gear. Heading out, we go our separate ways. She went to find some books or music and I went to the armor district to purchase a kevlar muggers hat. After much searching, I find it in a back alley kind of shop. It is a rather unusual thing, so I can't really complain. The hat is strechy, but have the light armor around the bottom and varies across the entire piece of clothing.

That out of the way. I go and browses just random things for a bit. Purchasing another tench knife that I have neglected to replace. I also find a book of more advanced songs and another on advanced lute playing. Awesome! I purchase them and go on my way to find a place to practice.

By the end of the day, I have mastered one song and the instrumental section that goes with it. 'The Bard Song" is the name of it. It's a great thing I know English or these song would just stay on the selves just waiting for someone who knew the language.

Going back to the inn, I find that Cheshire has yet to return. Checking the time, it is around 9 at night. Too early to worry. Laying down on the bed, I slip into the void knew as sleep.

Waking with a start, I see Cheshire stagger into the room, holding two blood legs. One in each hand. The tore flesh at the ends are spilling an enormous amount of blood on the floor. "Chesh... What have you done?!" I harshly whisper out. She gives me a sickening smile and throws the legs onto the foot of the bed. As they land, I see that these were my legs. All I have are stumps. Crying out in terror, the agony hits me. Unspeakable pain from my stumps. I scream out in agony from the wounds.

Thunk! Cheshire's open hand connects with my cheek. I hurl myself from the bed and fall onto the floor. The pain is gone. "Crow! You okay?! Jesus man, you must have had some dream to be acting like that!" I crawl from the floor and kneel on my knees at the side of the bed. My legs are back and Cheshire is standing over me with a worried expression on her face.

Coughing harshly, my throat is raw from yelling, I get out, "I'm fine... Just having a little nightmare."

"A little?! I was trying to wake you for ten minutes before I slapped you!" I pause for a second. That long? Sighing, I apologize to her and check the time. It is 4 in the morning. I am not going back to sleep.

Cheshire slips under the covers while I was thinking. "Night Chesh." I say as I get up and put on my gear. She mutters out a farewell. I leave the room and head deep into the tunnels. Easily navigating the darkness with my new vision. As I travel, I actively hunt mobs, which here are zombies, and execute them in mass.

I spend a great deal of time on this. By the time I take a break, it is 4 in the afternoon and I have leveled up once more. Pulling up my map, I have somehow gotten to the opposite side of the sector. Well, might as well just get to the south town and teleport back.

Singing a little song, I travel further south to the town. I get to the area on the map soon, but it is just another long tunnel. Dammit. Now I have to find the exit. Searching around for an hour. I final stumble upon the exit. Relieved to get out these stuffy tunnels, I strut into the lobby.

Only to almost piss myself. In front of me is a hoard of zombies. Well hoard is a terrible world for this, more along the lines of ARMY. They all turn to me and let out a moan. A crash resound behind me. The door just shut itself, then as if to spite me. A message pops up telling me that I triggered an event.

Protect the Town:  
Zombies have grown in numbers and shall soon overrun the town. Eliminate the undead – 500/500

Oh what the hell. Come on! Why am I always stumbling on things that will kill me?! I level my rifle with the heads of the mobs and squeeze the trigger back. The gun barks out the clip and most of the rounds take out a zombie.

At the hostile action, the army surges forward. All eager to tear me apart. As I fire and fight my way around, I slowly get cornered. I line up the next shot. Click. I rip out the magazine and reach into my pockets for another. There isn't. Drawing my pistol in a smooth motion, I continue the battle for life.

The nearest zombie lunges. I slam the barrel against its forehead and fire. The bullet caves in its head, but the slide locks back. The last round spent. Backing up, I take stock of the situation. There are still at least a few hundred undead creatures chasing me and I am out of ammo. I used the last of my healing items right before I entered this room.

Drawing my knife, I plunge it into the nearest ghouls head. I back up and circle the army. I dispatch the ones that lunge. I miss a hit and it cost me a few fingers. Glancing at my health, I see it took a dive. These creatures were going to kill me. Take both these worlds from me. Never would I see my family again. All my friends. Never see Cheshire again.

This thought passed through my head. I lose myself in my rage. All around me, blood flies and crystals fall. My knife is a blur of crimson steel as it passes from one ghoul into another. Fists impacted me from all angles, but most were only glancing. As I destroy the foul beings before me, I realize that I am chanting something in Elvish.

The chanting grew louder and my slaughter faster. My health decreasing from the heavy impacts the zombies punches caused. I took no notice and continued the bloody actions. My chant soon degraded to roars of battle. I can make out a word here and there, but I don't pay attention to what I was screaming. My vision turns red. A little text screen appears in the corner of my vision.

Rage of the Elves:  
-Speed increased  
-Strength increased  
-Duration 10 minutes

The new speed aided in the battle as a few hundred turned into one hundred. I slam my knife hilt deep into the zombie in front of me. The blade snaps off as I pull it out. The weapon could not handle the fighting. I pull my rifle out and flipped it around with my hands on the barrel.

Using my speed, I tear through the undead. Clubbing heads from shoulders until the gun was about to break from abuse. I resorted beating the few remaining undead to the ground with my fists. Only to finish them with a heavy curb stomp to the throat. This rage gave me immense strength. Allowing me to break their necks with little effort.

The last ghoul submits under my blows and shatters into crystals. Looking at my health, it is about 20 points away from 0. My legs give out as pain starts to catch me. Falling to my knees on the gore stricken floor, I weep tears of joy. I'm still alive. After I compose myself, I look up and see a message.

Congratulations warriors! You have saved the people of the south outpost!

Under this was the rewards I received from the event. Enough to level me up twice and over 100,000 dollars. That is just from completing the event. Not taking in account for the EXP from the fight itself. All together I got 300,000 dollars and gained three levels.

Laughing once more in relieve, I attempt to get to my feet, but it was no use. Falling flat on my face in the sea of crimson liquid, I lay there exhausted. I hear a grate open from the nearby stairs up. The stone blocking the way has been lifted when I beat the last zombie to death. The other tunnels have also been once again unlocked.

"I'm telling you all! There is an army down here, so shut the hell up! You're going to get us killed!" An unfamiliar voice echos down the tunnels. A group of players enter the blood bathed room. All they see is blood and a teen laying in an ocean of blood and gore. The remains of the zombies spewed about everywhere. Arms, legs and some heads here and there.

Using my broken rifle as a crutch, I struggle to my feet. "Hello people, I think I may have taken all the kills," I say to them in a tired voice and gave them a sickly pale grin which came out like more of a wince as the shifting irritated my many wounds. Looking down, I see at some point in the battle, I fractured my leg. What could have caused that? I was also drenched in the blood of my foes and probably a lot of my own.

Limping up to them, I ask if the town is up the stairs. They dumbly nod, staring at me. I start to hobble up the stairs when one of them, I believe the leader, grabs my arm. "What happened?! How did you fight all those things alone?!" he cried at me.

"Um... I got lucky..." That is kind of true. I was lucky to stumble on the song that sprouted those roots. Shaking off his arm, I continued the painful journey up the stairs.

I get to the surface and breath in fresh air for the first time in two days. Then I notice an army of players in front of me. Staring at me. Giving them a slight wave, I begin to drag my broken ass towards a nearby store. Need something for this pain. Still using my near destroyed rifle as a walking stick.

A tall man jogs up to me, "Where's John and the rest of the scouts?!" he asks me. Eying me suspiciously. That must be the group I passed. I tell him that they are probably coming back soon. Speak of the devil, they, at that moment, walk out of the tunnels. Looking shell-shocked. The sight of all that blood may have gotten to them.

They looked numbly around until they spot me next to I guess their leader. Pointing at me, they call out, "There she is, that's the person that took the event from us!" What? I took jack shit!

"Fuck you! I took nothing! I got trapped in a small god damn room with an ass load of zombies and killed them! That's not stealing! That's kicking ass!" I laugh painfully at the end. Oh god, I have some broken ribs too. Those zombies know how to throw a beat down. Spitting out some blood, I turn back and continue the hobbling trip to the nearby store.

Purchasing a heavy-duty med kit. I wrap my wounds and let myself heal. As I hear, I talk to the NPC owner. Just small talk. Weather, landmarks, interesting things around the area. The programming for them is great and it is refreshing to just talk to one and not have it give you a job that could kill you.

My leg is soon fixed up and my health bar is half-full. Getting up from my seat, I leave for the teleporter. Still bathed in blood, I get soon stares as I reach the teleporter. "twelfth floor north outpost," I call out at the teleporter. Nothing happened.

Confused I try again. A player sees this and tells me that the north town does not have a teleporter linked up to the rest. Shit. I message Cheshire that I would be late getting back.

Grabbing food, I sit down in a corner of the plaza and set up my bench. I make a few hundred rounds for my rifle and pistol. Looking up from my work. I see a crowd of people staring at me. "What? Never seen a guy making bullets before?" I call out to them as I put the primer into the last round. I then start putting them into magazines.

After that's done, I place my damaged rifle on the table and start to fix the cracks and chips on the stock. As the finishing touches were made and the dry-fire test to make sure the weapon worked properly, I look up and see even more people gathered around my bench and staring. 'What do you want?!" I ask agitated at the attention.

A man walks up to me and asks, "Are you selling those rounds? We would like to buy them."

"Sorry mate," I say as I slap a clip home in the rifle, "Need these to get back to my girlfriend." Chambering a round, I pack the table away. The group slowly disperses, muttering about this and that. Walking back to the subway entrance, I see the leader of that army I saw hanging around. As I walk past him, he goes to stop me.

"If you want to talk, talk while we walk. I'll give you a minute" I tell him as I push past him into the darkness. I hear him fall in pace behind me.

"I would like to invite you to my gu-"

"No. Is there anything else you wanted?"

"Uh... If you join us, we could make sure you don't almost die li-" I stop him there with my hand on his chest. He can't see in this light. I have no idea why he followed me into the darkness of the tunnel without a light.

"I'm not joining you. I just want to get back to north town before morning and you're holding me up. So I'll ask once more. Is there anything other them me joining your guild you need?" He shakes his head in the dark. Seeing that this conversation was done. I take off in a sprint that turned my figure into a blur.

I tear through the tunnels, jumping and sliding around the pipes that cross my path. I draw the last of my energy to do this. I make it back to the outpost in record time. Though not the most graceful ending. I was so tired that I didn't notice a pipe stretching across the hall. I clothes lined myself, my flail body cartwheeled into the town, slamming into a wall back first. Then adding injury to more injury, landed on the top of my head.

Groaning, I staggered to my feet while the people who saw me fly into town laugh at me, then stop once they take a better look at me. I ignore them as I stumble back to the inn Cheshire and I were staying at. I enter the room. Cheshire is sitting on the bed reading. Looking up she starts to say, "What happened? Why were you s-" she stops once she gets a look at me. Her face turns pale at the sight of all the blood. Getting to her feet she starts to question me, "What happe-" She didn't get to finish as I crushed her in a hug.

I stay there embracing her for a long while. As I break the contact, I give her a smile, then collapse onto the ground. All my energy and more was spent.


	10. Chapter 10

I slowly regain my senses. The first thing I notice is the feel of itchy sheets on my torso. The next is a warmth on my side. Slowly opening my eyes. I find myself in the inn. The chipped concrete ceiling above is a dead give away.

Stiffly sitting up, I look to my side. Cheshire is snoozing next to me. Looking at the time, I see it is 2 in the morning. As quietly as I can be, I lay back down and go back to sleep. I'm still dead tired from yesterday's mayhem.

The shifting of the sheets wake me. Cheshire was trying to get out of bed without waking me. I let out a laugh, "This may be a firsts. You getting up before me." I sit up and look at her. She smiles and shakes her head.

Her face then grows serious. "What the hell happened to you?! You come into the room covered in blood and then just pass out! You almost gave me a heart attack!" I quickly apologize for how I worried her. I can see how me collapsing on the floor would scare someone.

I begin to explain, "Well... I was trying to get that nightmare out of my head, so I went and started to destroy the population in the tunnels. Before I knew it, I was across the sector. Not sure how that happened. I was closer to south town, so I stopped there to resupply and transport. I stumbled on an event at south town. At the entrance or exit of the subway was an army of ghouls. Would have pissed myself and ran, but the doors were blocked on my entry. I kinda went into an insane blood rage and killed them all. Most with a knife, so I got the shit beat out of me in the process." I start laughing at this point, 'The worst part of this was. There was an ARMY of players just about to enter the tunnels when I activated this. If I was say four hours behind, I could have avoided the whole thing!"

"That not funny!" She tried not to crack up at my continued laughing, "Anyways, even if you were to go mad, how did you take out an army, also by army do you just mean like 100?"

I shake my head, "500." she flinches at the number, "You are right though. During the fight, I got a new song. More of a battle cry." I open my skills and look for the song. It was under a sub category in my singing skill section. This is where the other buffs I know hide out. I know the songs by heart, but I may need to refresh my memory on what they do.

I find the buff "Rage of the Elves" and make the screen visible. Turning the menu, I let Cheshire read it. "How much does it increase everything?" I give her a shrug. I have no idea. All I know is I become really strong.

"Well, I should take a shower," I state. Looking down, I see that I have no shirt on. Only pants. I guess she took my shirt off to check for wounds. The remaining clothes are the color of dry blood. Cheshire tells me that she'll wait in the main room for me. Getting up from the bed, I step into the shower and blasted the cold water on myself. My pants are soon cleanish and the blood on my body is gone. Pulling the shirt from my inventory, also my hat, I drench those in water as well.

Putting those back in my inventory, I bring out my casual wear. Don't want to be wearing soaking wet clothing. Shaking my hair dry, I step out and leave to join Cheshire. We make some plans to go out and leave for the south. This is not the most pleasant place to be.

The noon sun finds us on the road crossing the 12 sectors to get to south town. On the way, I remember that I got a LA item from that dragon. Pulling up my inventory, I find it buried in trash mats from the zombies. "Necklace of fire" it adds a major defense against all fire attacks. Be it a flamethrower or napalm. The necklace is a bronze chain with a ruby pendant. Within the ruby is the shape of the dragon.

When we break for lunch, I give it to Cheshire. I don't really need it and she is the one that plays with fire on a daily basis. I just play with explosives that can be made into fire. She seems to really like the ruby it has. The next few hours were spent on the road. We could have stopped and teleported, but we wanted to have a relaxing drive for a change. I sang a few more songs and leveled up my singing skill to 450.

After an hour more of driving, we enter the starting city. Deciding to take another break here since we don't come here too often. Parking the car at a garage in the city. The one place where a car is safe. There are suppose to be some in later cities, but we haven't found anything related to a city yet.

Walking out of the parking area, we wander the streets for a bit. We pass some time joking around and generally just having fun before we have to head back to the front to train once more. I consciously keep us away from the west part of the city. When we were done messing about and I've sold my trash mats, we head back to the car.

I hop into the back and Cheshire back into the drivers seat. Leaning against the side, I watch the city go by and players going about their business. We get out onto the broken highway and continue or trip. Or we would have, but a group of cars start gang up on us. Grabbing the turret, I chamber a heavy round.

A man in the lead vehicle waves us to the side. I tell Cheshire to pull over. I'm rather interested in what these morons want. We slowly cruise to the side and stop. I keep the turret on the lead car as they pull up behind us. I call out to them, "Don't dismount or I will open fire! Now what do you want?"

The man, with a sneer, hops out of the car and starts walking at us. Staying to my word, I sweep the ground in front of him. Large chunks of the asphalt jump up and slam into his shins. He had a surprised look on his face. What? Did he not expect me to keep my word? "Dude! What did I just tell you?! Now stay where you are and tell us what you want or go away."

"Do you have a permit to be on these roads?!" A permit? What is this?

"No! What the hell are you going on about permits?!" He goes to draw his rifle. "Dumbass! I still have a mounted weapon trained on you! Don't just reach for a gun you fool." He stops and glares at me.

"By order of a sergeant of the liberation army, I demand you dismount and relinquish yourself to the army for fines." I couldn't keep a straight face. I tried believe me, but I didn't have the will. The sergeant frowns at my snickering face. From behind me, I hear Cheshire fighting back a similar bout of laughter.

She calls back from the seat, "What right does the army have to fine us? We are way more powerful then all of you and you are at a disadvantage in this exchange of words." It sounded arrogant, but never the less true. We did have them at a disadvantage too. What the guy didn't notice was that the rounds I sent out were heavy-duty stuff. Looking at the four vehicles they had, I know for a fact, that my rounds could tear apart their engine before they could try anything. That's is to say if I could accurately use this tank of a gun.

"You dare threaten the army!" He calls over his shoulder, "Arrest these criminals!" I take this as the call of hostile action it was and blow apart the lead vehicles engine as Cheshire floors the accelerator. The other cars begin to give chase. I take out the first's front tires in an accurate sweep of the turret. This caused them to swerve into wreckage on the road. The next one got their engines shot up and the last kinda just gave up.

Flying down the highway, we decide to just teleport to the south town. This permit thing is stupid, but I don't want to be on the road when more army members come along. Pulling into the nearest forest to the first town, we hide the car deep inside. Dismounting, we run to the teleporter and get to south outpost 12.

Arriving at the new town, we immediately go looking for some quests. The Experience we get from the quests will help Cheshire level up some more. We arrive at the general goods store. They have a quest marker above their head.

"Hail craftsman, Do you need any assistance?" I almost always start a quest with an... odd greeting.

"I need some strong and willing people to take these materials across town. They are hot metals that need to be given to the armorer before they cool. Make haste for they only stay heated for three minutes!" A bag appears on the table. Grabbing it, I sprint out of the room while Cheshire takes the quest as well.

I vault myself up to the rooftops using some nearby rubble and jump my way across the town. It is rather large, so there are many condensed buildings. Leaping over streets, I consult my map for the location of the objective. Going the right way. That could have been bad. After a minute of dangerous leaps and dives, I jump off the building and land in front of the target. The NPC jumps back from fright.

"Here's the heated metals from the goods store." getting over the surprise, she, for it is a woman, snatches the bag and puts it in her inventory.

"Thank you sir. As a reward, I shall allow you access to my more advance wares." Cool! I wait around the store for a bit and see Cheshire come barging down from the rooftops. Guess she took the same way as me. The NPC thanks her too and goes back to tend her stand.

I walk up to her and ask, "May I see these advanced goods you have?" A screen pops up in my view. The goods are metal plated leather armor. Leather. For a gun game. Looking at the stats, I am impressed. They are a good deal better then our quest gotten one. Also as a bonus, they weigh pounds less then our current armor.

I buy a pair of boots, gloves, and upper body armor. Putting them on, I notice that unlike my scales, they cover all my torso. Like the boots, they are covered in jet black metal plates. The leather seems to be tough and sturdy. I look at the gloves and see that they are finger-less and made from a softer leather. The knuckles and top of the hand is the only section that is plated. Cheshire grabs the same set.

We head back to the general store to turn in the quest. We each got a thousand bucks. While I'm here... I purchase a large hoodie and slip it over my armor. If I don't want to wear a hat to cover my ears, I can always put the hood up.

We leave the store satisfied. We do still need to find a quest though. After searching for a bit, we do find the quest. It is to clear out an overruned police station. The enemies are bandits and at the end is something they worship as a god. Sounds interesting.

Purchasing a room at the inn in advance, just in case it runs out of space, we head out to find this station. Cheshire leads because once again my rifle is not suited for this kind of thing. I love it and all, but it can be inconvenient at times. Room after room we clear. The operation is going smoothly as we clear the bottom and second floor. Once all is cleared, then we move onto the basement. Opening the door, we file into the room. Only to stop dead in our tracks when we see this "God" they worshiped.

It is... A giant rat. Not knee height giant. Size of the room giant. It lets out a battle squeak which shook the room. Oh god. If this wasn't so terrifying, then it would be gut-busting hilarious. Unload our clips into the giant creature, we spread out. The basic attack the thing has is sweeping with its claws, biting at us, and spinning in a circle while it lashes out with its pink tail.

After a ridiculous amount of time later, we have it on its final bar of health. This thing can really take some hits. I take a glancing swipe... and dish out some hits too. My health lost about 20% on that one hit. After another tedious hour, the boss fall dead and explodes. I got the last attack item and Cheshire leveled up from the fight. Looking at the item, it is a new pistol. A great one. The name is "Police Beretta 9mm" it also comes with some flavor text, "This once belonged to the late police chief, who stood valiantly until the beast of the dark devoured his life."

I look at this new pistol. It has much higher stats then my 1911. "Yo, Cheshire! I found you a new sidearm!"I hand her the 9mm, which she switched her old one with. A message pops up in front of us telling that the job is done and now we have to turn it in. We climb our way out and head back to the quest giver. The reward we got was more EXP which gave Cheshire another level and put more a few thousand away from my own level up. That boss had given us a lot of experience points. The other part was more money. Standard rewards for clearing quests.

Heading back to the inn, I sing the song of celebration for our latest victory and accomplishments. It seems like an appropriate moment for it. The song end and Cheshire laughs. Looking at her, I see her looking behind us. Fuck no. Turning my head back, I see a crowd of people following us. Staring. Cheshire looks at me and innocently defends herself, "Hey, I didn't know they were following either. I was just listening to the song."

I hear foot steps approach us. A man arrives next to us as we walk. It is that leader from the army from the event. I swear if he tries to recruit me again. Unfortunately for him, he did ask, "Would you ladies like to join our guild? We can give you some armor and protection. We also could use your singing skills to boost the moral of the troops." Called me a lady. KILL! I repress the thought while Cheshire to deny the request.

I do however ask the man, "What is this guild called anyways? I never asked last time you tried to recruit me."

He stares at me for a bit until a expression of recognition crosses his face. "Oh... Uh we are the Dragon Force. One of the new clearing guilds. This floor will be the first for us. Anyways, we found the new boss room, so we will be hosting the next boss meeting." He seems to puff his chest out at the end.

"Where and when is this meeting?" Cheshire asks him. He looks at us for a bit.

"Why? Are you going to join the fight?" He asks, seeming to not believe we are front line fighters.

Taking it as insult to our strength, I tell him off quietly, there are still a group following, "Join shit! We've been fighting in most boss fights since the first guy." He shakes his head in disbelief and tells us the time and location of the next meeting. It is tomorrow at the plaza. Going to call it an early day, we head off to bed.

We join the meeting as it starts. DF Leader is on the stands tell us about the boss. It will be a Giant humanoid that wields a wooden club the size of a car. Once the description is out of the way, Diabel takes the stand as always and works out a battle plan. Calling Cheshire and I up, he hands us a few satchels of explosives. "This is next tier explosives. They work near the same as yours, just shoot and they explode. We require you to plant them at the boss's feet at the beginning like always."

Nodding our acceptance, we go and take our seats. We are to meet for the trucks at high noon today. Which we do. Taking our usual back seats. We are again with Kirito, but next to him is a giant man. He introduces himself as Agil. From the looks of it, he is a LMG support class.

I sing the song of battle. We will need the buff to get the bombs down quickly. Once the trucks stop, we all dismount. After saying their customary little speeches, we enter. Cheshire and I sprint forward and get to the boss. I chuck my explosive down and pass Cheshire as she throws hers. A second later, a massive explosion sounds from behind. Something slams into my back and knocks me on my chest. Rolling with the heat wave, I get to my feet and turn.

I see Cheshire rolling across the floor, leaving a bloody trail. With all the strength I could put in my frozen and pained limbs, I run over, slapping a crystal over her body and pick her up. She is so light. I carry her behind the lines as the main force open fire. Sliding behind cover, I survey the damages.

I nearly burst out in tears. She is missing an arm, leg and has giant chunks of shrapnel in her. The new armor she had is ripped to shreds. Her health is already in deep yellow. I bust another crystal over her, then pull the shrapnel out. Another crystal as I finish. Her health is still dropping. Another crystal as she enters red, then another, then another. I grab for more, but there aren't anymore and her health was still dropping.

I hug her close, begging for the health to stop moving. It was still going down. Nonononono! what do I do?! As tears run off my face, I start singing a tune that is playing in my mind. Singing an unknown song filled with sorrow. For many minutes I sang. The rate her health goes down slows, but does not stop. The song was healing her, but not enough. Voice cracking, I continue to sing, surrounded by gunfire and screaming.

The sound of battle soon stops, but Cheshire is still hurt bad. Her health has stopped decreasing in the low-low reds, but is not moving back up. My healing was the only thing keeping her alive. Ever so slowly, the damage of the explosion wore off and her health started to increase quickly. Later judging the rate of how fast her health increased, I would find that the health went up 5% a second. Even with her health full, she is still unconscious and barely breathing. Her arm and leg are back thanks to the healing.

Slowly, I pick her up and stand. I try to walk, but I start coughing. Blood spurts from my mouth. Looking down at my chest I find why. I hadn't noticed in my panic, but I had a giant chunk of metal sticking out of my chest. Seems the song was keeping us both alive. Keeping Cheshire supported in one arm, I reach around and tear the metal from my back.

That done, I open my menu and take out a teleport crystal. Holding Cheshire close, I say the south town and break the crystal. A flash of light and I'm back in the plaza with Cheshire still in my arms. Numbly. I stagger back to our room and lay her on the bed. Covering her with the sheets. Once that is done, I collapse to the floor. My health is in the low reds from my wound. The bleeding effect close to knocking me out. My battle healing is leveling up quickly as it heals the wound in my chest, but it's not quick enough to stop the damage before 5% hits.

I wake from my sleep in pain. Groaning, I sit up from the cold blood-stained floor. Whoops. I drag myself to my feet and check on Cheshire. She is now sleeping soundly. No longer just breathing in those shallow breaths. Relieved that she is okay, I drop my head onto the bed and fall asleep.

I awaken once more as Cheshire stirs from her sleep. She stiffly sits up from the bed. I keep my head on my arms as I watch. After stretching and looking around confused for a second, I ask her in a quiet voice, "How are you feeling?"

She slowly answers me, "I feel fine... Didn't I die?" She gives me a confused stare.

Still in pain from the wounds, I stand up and quietly tell her, "You almost did. The explosives most have been faulty. The bomb by all rights killed you more then six times over. I used all the crystals I had and I sang a song of healing to keep you alive." Tears start to leak down my face as I recall the earlier event. "It was so close."

She gets up and we bring each other into a gentle embrace. Her arm touches the wound on my back, making me flinch. "Let us not touch there," I weakly joke. She draws back and takes a clear look at me. Her face paling.

I have a still clear open wound on my chest that I notice is just now starting to close up. Everything is covered in blood and part of my hoodie is scorched off from the fire. I look Cheshire over and notice something that turns my face red. Her naked torso is exposed. The fire and shrapnel took off both armor and undergarments.

Turning my head away, I mention this to her. She switches into a plain T-shirt. I looked back and noticed that the ruby necklace was still around her neck. It and the new armor had saved her life. She also takes out a healing potion from her inventory and hands it to me. I drink it and see that my health leaves the low yellows thanks to it.

We just sit on the bed for a while until Cheshire breaks the silence. "How did the explosives go off? I just tossed them on top of yours like always and then it exploded." I put my head in my hands. I know what happened.

"That dumbass probably put active landmines in the bags. I never pull the pins in mine. It never mattered if it was active or not." I punched myself in the head out of frustration. I should have checked what was in the bags. Exhaling my anger out, I take off my upper clothing and inspect the damages to my armor. There is a gaping hole in the front and back. The back is also burned beyond repair.

I begin to tell Cheshire that we may have to go cloth hunting. I never got that far as her lips crashed into my own. We kiss until we have to stop for air. Things escalated from that point on and well into the night. The filters did not stay on for the night.

A flash of light rips through the room. A beam bathed in flames falls in front of the door. The inn is on fire! Jumping from the bed in a panic. I look back to get Cheshire. She was standing next to the bed, covered in her own blood and ash while screaming, "It wasn't enough James! How could you let me burn?!" as she continues the screaming, her arm melts off and falls to the ground. A spurt of blood jets from my chest as the limb hits the ground. Metal shrapnel is sticking out all over my body. Before my eyes, the skin around the metal melts to the floor.

As I fall to my knees in agonizing pain, I hear voice scream from all around, "You failed to protect anyone! You will burn for your failure!" My feet catch fire and slowly, agonizingly slow, the fire crept up until I became a pillar of hell fire.

I flinch awake. Checking to my side, I see Cheshire's form sleeping curled up to my torso. She has both her arms and legs. My chest isn't melting and the inn wasn't burning. Sighing in relief, I drop my head back onto the pillow. That was a bad one. A really bad one. I wipe the tears from my eyes and lay awake, waiting for Cheshire to wake up. Just enjoying her presence.


	11. Chapter 11

Sorry for the long wait guys. I have lack motivation to continue and well finally got it back today. Plus with the anime done and all, the only thing that motivates me are you guys. Thanks for sticking with me and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

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I lay awake for another four hours until Cheshire stirs. I have calmed down in this time and my breathing is at an even pace. She lifts her head and greets me with an airy "Good morning." I greet her with a smile that I hope showed none of the fear from the nightmare. I seem to pull it off because she gives me a grin and untangled herself from my body

We gear up in our casual clothes, for both sets of our current armor were destroyed. I lend her a pair of my pants because hers are missing the left leg section up to the pelvis. The exchange of clothing done, we head out to break our fast. Chatting about mundane things. We try our hardest not to mention the boss fight earlier. The nightmare is still playing heavy in my mind. I have to stop putting us in danger. Do things smart for once. These thoughts were noticeably making me jumpy. When Cheshire asked whats was wrong, I told her nothing and had to shut off my brain for a bit. I have to just stop thinking until I can calm myself again.

We decide to take a break and just stay in town for the day. We just hang out for a bit, then part ways to do our own thing. When I asked what she was planning to do, she replied, "It's a secret." She walked off after that. Shrugging, I leave and find a secluded area and practice more songs from my books. I later tried to find the healing song, but it wasn't listed in my skills. Bummer.

I left the deserted area around 5 in the evening. Becoming decent at a few more of the songs. The practice completely calmed me down. Using friend finder, I see that Cheshire was in the market district. Probably buying more books or something. With the thought of the market, I remember that I still need to get some more armor. Finding the armorer without a problem, I buy up the gear that got destroyed. Messaging Cheshire, I ask if she had replaced hers yet. No. I buy up the stuff she needs too. I shop around for more unnecessary things just to kill time and to make sure the next time we go out, we are over prepared.

After all is done and bought, I make my way back to the inn. I lazily hop into bed and fall asleep. That nightmare had interrupted my sleep, so ten hours of activity is all I have in me. The night passes and I wake up. It is around 7 in the morning. Something felt off... checking around, I figure it out pretty quick. Cheshire isn't here. Opening friend finder, I see that she is still in the safe zone. I send her a message, "You okay?"

I get one back a minute later saying she is fine, just doing something. She also says not to find her. Weird. Following her direction, I just sit in the bed and practice some more. The acoustics in this room is awful. Finally having enough of the echos, I head out to my spot.

Settling in, I start playing. After a few minutes, I see a figure jump from the nearby rooftops. Landing with a thud, they walk over to me. As the person draws closer, I see that it is Cheshire. She has an expression on that I can't place, so I call out to her, "Yo! Cheshire! What's the matter?" She flinched and looks around. Oh wait, she probably can't see me. My spot is in a destroyed building's rubble filled third floor. "Up here love."

Looking up at the building, she looks through the debris. I give her a wave. She sees me and jogs to the ground floor. I jump my way down the hill of rubble from the collapsed walls. I stop and ask her my question again. She responds with, "You think we could clear out today? This place is starting to bother me."

"What's wrong with it? Other than being dark, dank, and riddled with zombies," I ask with a grin. I receive a punch to my arm for the smart-ass remark.

"Nah... It just... I don't know why! It just bothers me!" She stammers out, getting more frustrated the more she tries to explain. She also seems worried about something.

"Okay, okay. Lets go if you want to." She pulls out her keys and summons the car. After we mount out, she drives down the road and to the next sector. The change in scenery is jarring. The new sector is plains of snow, with forests of pines in the distance. The creatures that I see from the road are bloodthirsty looking deer and polar bears. I try again to get Cheshire to tell me whats the matter, but she won't tell me.

We arrive at the north town. Oh my gods. It is puny! The houses are about 7 feet tall. The tallest, the town hall, is about 12 feet tall. Freaking gnomes must live here. Finding the inn easily, we rent our room for our stay. The room was only 7 by 7. Being in it for a few minutes made me feel claustrophobic.

I quickly left, followed by Cheshire. We search around a bit and soon find the quest giver of the town. A small old woman. Cheshire greets her, "Hello ma'am, do you need any help?" She still doesn't act like a fool when she asks to help. No fun.

"Those blasted deer have been destroying my crops! I need some people to go kill those bastards!" I hide a laugh with a cough at her choice of language. That's just hilarious to hear a tiny old lady call deer, bastards. Cheshire agrees and then I take the quest as well.

We need to kill a hundred deer. Damn. She really wants these things dead and gone. Leaving town we find a nice place to settle down and we pull out our rifles. Loading them with piercing rounds, we start to go to work on the deers. The field is soon swarmed by the deer hearing the sound of gun-fire. These foes are not very strong, but damn they swarm like locus.

Piles start to build up as the deer die too fast to let their brethren despawn which is a testament on how quickly these things die, it only takes like two seconds to despawn. We accomplish the mission in the first few minutes, but they kept coming. As Cheshire continued to pick them off, I start throwing around explosives, tearing through many in one go. Like I saw before, not strong alone. The number start to peter off the longer we fight. Cheshire calls over the echos of gunfire and explosions, "I see an opening! Follow me!"

She starts to pick up the pace and advance. I cover the back as we slaughter our way across the field, that is until I take an antler to the gut. Pressing the barrel to the creature's head, I end its existence and break out into a run to catch up to Cheshire, who was nearing the town's border. The attack had delayed my advance so the gap was filling with feral deer.

As Cheshire breaks the border, the deer stop hunting her and turns to me. Laughing at my own misfortune, I sprint at the deers, who braced themselves to spear me. Just as I get to them, I send a burst into ones head and vault through the gap and using the deers following body, launch myself over the next line of deer and into the town's border.

Rolling onto my back from the momentum, I laugh uncontrollable as I stop and get out, "Oh my gods... Almost died." After my fit of hysteria is over, Cheshire helps me to my feet and we turn in the quest. We got a combination of Experience, which coupled with the slaughter leveled us up, and money. We are now both in the high forties with our levels and I'm probably still one of the more rich players.

Relaxing for a bit after that ordeal, we grab some food and explore the town. Nothing really pops out at us, but it was still interesting to see the population. It seems that this village is run by gnomes and shops by standard humans. We head back to the inn to call it a day and to for me to replace the spent rounds. The bed we found later was too small for two people, so it seems that I will be sleeping on the floor for our time here. Cheshire tried to fight it, but I still want to be in the same room as her, so I'm not getting another room, plus the carpet is softer than the bed in the last inn.

The next day we spend just doing gathering and clearing jobs. Nothing to note from. Near the end of the day, a NPC gnome walks up to us and asks, "The Mayor has requested your presence. Please follow me." Curious, we follow the small creature to the town hall which was barred when we tried to enter before. The guards on either side of the door, opens the door on the messenger's approach and we follow the Gnome in.

The mayor is seated in a large room on a snow packed throne. That gnome must have one numb ass to be able to sit there all day. "Welcome adventurers! I wish to hire you for a mission for this village!" The creature cries out in a high pitch voice. "A group of polar bears have been raiding the lands. Due to your recent conquests over the populations of the forest, I ask of you to help my village in destroying these monsters! We have found them, but all attempts to defeat them have been thwarted"

When the ear-splitting noise died down, a pop-up message appeared.

Assist the Mayor:  
A pack of Polar bears have been raiding the lands. Go to their nest and eliminate them and their alpha.  
20/20 polar bears  
1/1 Alpha

I accepted it with Cheshire. The location of the nest appeared on my map. We take our leave and head back to the inn. No need to go hunting in the night when we can do it at high noon. Taking my place on the floor, I quickly curl up into a ball and fall asleep.

The next day finds us tracking our way through the snow up a mountain side, where the cave for the bears are supposed to be. Reaching the top, we see the bears. And nearly run back down the mountain in a panic. The bears were MONSTERS. Bigger than our car monsters and they are everywhere.

Loading up my blade rounds and Cheshire her incendiary, we find a choke point in the mountain and start the fight. The bears took a clip to the head each for my rifle and Cheshire's targets took a clip and a few seconds to burn before they went down. Soon we are able to clear the entrance and inner caverns of the nest. The latter accomplished by using myself as bait.

Finally, when the last of the bears die, the Alpha comes out and we start running away. This Alpha was bigger than the giant rat by a good twelve feet. It gives chase as I start pulling out mines that I had left over from yesterday. Priming them, I drop them behind me in one group. A few seconds later, there was a loud explosion. Turning around, the bear was on its stomach for both its legs were blown off.

"Cheshire! Get its head!" I shout as we charge back at it. I unload a clip into its head along with Cheshire. We both click empty as we jump on it. I run up the back as Cheshire stays on top on the giant's head and spends her fresh mag into it. I stop at the middle of its back and press the barrel to its spine.

We spend the next minute just destroying the struggling bear. Finally, it gives and dies with a groan. The quest tells us to return, but Cheshire says to check around the nest. I am so happy she said that because we find a ton of materials. Furs, teeth, metals, money, and weirdly a lot of high explosives. Grade A stuff too. Far better than what I can currently make.

The trek back down the mountain was even less enjoyable than the one up it. Well for me it was. About mid way down, the snow gave for me and I tumbled down the slope until I hit the bottom, a half mile down. This wouldn't have been so bad if there was not an assortment of cliffs and large drops in my way like the one on the bottom of the part I fell off of. When I land, I lay there in a daze before I was snapped out of it by a message from Cheshire.

She wanted to know if I was okay, I reply yes. Sending it, I fall back into my little dent in the snow and wait for her to get to the bottom. As I wait, I hear some players approach my position. After a minute, a shadow appears above me. Focusing on it, I see Mr Small. "S'up, how you doing?" I say without moving from my hole.

"Not bad... What happened to you?" was the reply I got from him.

"Can't complain much other. I just taking a half mile tumble down that mountain," I say nonchalantly, pointing at the mountain in front of us. Klein whistles when he looks at the mountain.

"You sure your okay?" Klein says with a slight worried tone. I laugh and wave him off. Struggling to my feet, I hop out of my "little" hole, which I see now is four feet deep. Wow... that probably would have killed me if the snow wasn't there.

"Damn... That is twice I've almost died in as many days... I'm still badass!" This got a chuckle from Klein's group.

"Well, you want to party with us for a bit? We are about to do a mission on top of that mountain you just fell off of."

"Is it the bear one?" He nodded, "Nah, we just finished it. Heres a tip for the boss though. When the alpha shows its face, have it run into some landmines, its legs aren't the strongest thing."

"We? Where's your party than?" He says looking around which caused me to laugh again.

"She didn't fall with me, so she is still making her way down." At that moment, Cheshire jumped off the small cliff that towered over us. The snow flew up as she landed. "Or at least I think she didn't fall..."

Cheshire jogged over to us and greeted the group. "Hey guys, Crow you okay?" I just give her a thumbs up. We chat with Klein for a bit, then go our separate ways. The trip back was thankfully uneventful. We get back to the high-pitched mayor and turn in the job which netted us the standard mini-boss clearing rewards and a set of boots that are lined with polar bear fur. The defense is great and putting them on, we find they are by far the most comfortable thing we have tried on in the game.

We retire to our small ass room for the day and just hang out for a bit before sleeping. After going up and down a mountain all day, neither of us feel like fighting for our lives again today. We do what teenage couples do, then went to sleep around eight at night.

Waking up with a stiff back, I shuffle my way to the bathroom and wash up. When I deem myself presentable, I cloth myself and leave to get mine and Cheshire's breakfast. In the low light of dawn, I buy some eggs and bacon for two and scroll through my messages while I make my way back to the midget hotel. Nothing. I put Cheshire's breakfast on the nightstand and head out to search for today's missions, only to find nothing. It seems we did all that was going to be done in this town, so I guess it is time to pack up and head south.

The noon sun greets our buggy speeding down the snow-covered roads with Cheshire once more at the wheel and my playing a jaunty tone on my instrument in the passenger seat to pass the time. The only interruptions in the peaceful drive that occurred was when Cheshire finds large hills and guns the engine to launch us through the air, other than that, it was a quiet trip around the world that took around three-hour.

South town is about the same as north town, but more players are here. This probably means there are more traders or more missions to be had. I hope it's the latter. Traders are good and all, but you don't make money by buying things.

Strolling through the streets, we see a lot of grim-faced front-liners glaring at everything and everyone. I wonder what happened to these guys to make them so pissy. We find that the inn is full already, so we just do a few fetch quests to pass the time and I make some more high quality rounds to use. I also start mixing around some ordinance for satchels. Just in case we meet a mini-boss, we can blow its ass skywards. While singing a little Irish tune, I analyze the polar bear explosives and start to break it down. Many hours pass, but I finally figure out how to make it and when I successfully do, a message pops up that gives me the recipe for easy reference later on. That is handy. If I had know you could figure out explosives before, I would have done it with Lizzy's stuff. It still has a low chance to succeed, but the fact that I might be able to make it is worth the low success rate.

Stretching my back, I finally pay attention to my surroundings and see I have attracted another crowd with my work. I also see that in the front, traders are taking notes, probably on the fact that you can break stuff down, and behind me is Cheshire napping against the wall. Checking the time, I see I've been at it for a good 5 hours. Oops.

Putting away my stuff, I shoo away the crowd, "Shows over people, please go away." When most have dispersed to wherever they go, I crouch down next to Cheshire and try to wake her up, only to receive a punch to my chest from the sleeping girl. Grumbling about domestic abuse, I settle in next to her and let her sleep using my shoulder as a pillow. At least she's comfortable.

Even in the cold, with the body heat leaning against me and our jackets and armour, we stayed pretty warm during the night. I was the first to wake at the break of dawn and when I shifted, Cheshire woke up as well. After getting over the haze of sleep, she turns to me and asks, "Why are we sleeping outside? You could have woke me and we could have gone to another town to get beds."

"Says the girl who punched me in the lungs when I tried," I chuckled out as I stretch out. "C'mon, let's go find something to do."


	12. Chapter 12

"Do you know where we are?" Cheshire asked me as we wander around aimlessly across the surprisingly large outpost.

"Nope! Not a clue," I reply in an upbeat voice as I take a left and see a crowd of people. "And I may I found something interesting. Wait here, I'll go check out what's happening."

I turn to the nearest building and run up the wall and crawl over the lip. With the height advantage on my side, I see a stall with a girl trading out weapons and the like. As I watch, my mind clicks as I realize who this is, it's Lizzy!

Hopping off the roof and scaring some passing players piss less, I go back to Chesh and tell her what I found.

"Think she can upgrade our weapons again?" Cheshire asks looking at the crowd.

I place a hand on my chest and act hurt from her words, "You wound me dear. Are my weapons not up to your high standards?" All said with a playful voice.

She snorts out a laugh, but doesn't reply anymore than that. She makes her way to the back of the line and joins the crowd. I follow her as well, hoping she has some nice attachments for my rifle or the elusive suppressor for my gun. No NPC shops carry them that I have found yet.

We wait in line for an hour before our turn is up, "What can I do for you today?" Lizbeth says with the award-winning smile that looks almost real. Cheshire is up first.

She draws out her MP5 and asks if she can upgrade it any. After examining the weapon, she mumbles out something that only me and Cheshire hears, "That moron went into weapons crafting?" Cheshire snickers at the jab at my person. Putting her attention back on Cheshire, she says, "I could upgrade it to the next tier in the smithing class, but that's rather expensive. Can I also ask why the barrel is made of one of the most expensive materials in crafting that would equal the value of the gun without it?"

Cheshire turns to me once she hears that and looks at me expecting an answer.

"What?! You kept blowing up or melting everything I made! Had to take steps to make building that gun! The way you play with fire, you would just blow the thing up in five days. Thinking about it, I don't know how that other gun held up for as long as it did with all those barrels it went though."

She grudgingly nods and turns back to the pink haired smith. "I guess I'll just have it upgraded." Liz nods and takes out a pair of tags. She writes a number on both and details on one. Threading the one in the trigger guard of the gun, she hands the other to Cheshire.

"I'll have the upgrade ready around one tomorrow." Thanking her, Cheshire steps off to the side and waits for me to finish.

"S'up Lizzy! Do you have an acog sight and a .223 suppressor?" She nods and heads to the back of the stall and looks through a cabinet she has back there. After a minute of rummaging, she finds the two and place them on the counter.

"Anything else explosive guy turned gunsmith?" She asks grinning.

"Actually yes, to make these two items, is it a schematic or something you just unlock? I have found myself blowing up any attachments on my weapon one way of another and would like to know if I can replace these without inconveniencing anyone."

"The hells a schematic?" She replies with a confused look on her face. Well that answers that question.

"Meet me at the inn later and I'll tell you, I don't want to hinder too much of your business." She nods and I pay for my goods. Stepping up to Cheshire, I cheekily say, "See, even getting lost when I'm around, good things can come of it."

Cheshire punches me in the shoulder and heads off to find the inn we bought a room in. Without her weapon she's not going out in the field. "I'll being doing some random shit if you need me," I call after her. She just waves a hand over her shoulder.

Hiking my way out of the post, I find a large snowy tree and carefully scale it. From there, I start sneaking and jumping from tree to trees, stalking deer and other mobs.

My senses dull over the next three hours due to tedious work and the cold. As I make a jump, I overestimate my reach and fall to the forest floor, or I would have if not for a narrow hole at the base of the tree which I fell leg first in.

As I land, there is a loud crack as I break both my legs. I couldn't stop the cry of pain before it escaped my lips. This echo down the long corridor I find myself in. Examining what I fell into, I see the hole I fell down is in the middle of the hall and fifteen feet above me. Yeah not getting out that way.

Typing out a message to Cheshire, I tell her what happened and where. When I hit send, a message pops up telling me that messages can't be sent in a dungeon. Perfect.

I align my bones to much of my agony and wait for my high leveled battle healing to fix them up. While I'm occupied, I attach my new equipment to my rifle. The sight replaces my holosight that I replaced my red dot with.

After waiting a painful twenty minutes, I pull my stiff body to its feet and using the patented "eny, meany, miny, moe" I started off to the right. This long corridor stretches at least four kilometers before turning off into a staircase down.

My mind screams at me "NO YOU FUCKING DUMBASS!" And my heart calmly tells me, "You know you are going down there whatever anyone says, just go." I listen to the rational one and start to head down the stairs, only to hit a pressure plate on the third step. I hate you heart. Using my sprint skill, I charge down the straight staircase at high speeds while trying not to roll my ankle and get caught by the raging fire that is following my footsteps and trying to taste my boot.

"Why do I keep doing stupid shit when I'm alone?!" I cry as I run.

Just when the fire was about to take me, I reach the end of the tunnel and throw myself to the side. The fire jets out into the room and slowly ends. Gasping on the stone floor, I lift my body and see a very large fox looking down on my with blood-red eyes and drool frothing around its mouth. It is about the size of a house and longer then three buses lined up bumper to bumper.

It lets loose an earth-shaking roar and I respond with a high pitch squeal that would do the gnomes proud. To all gods and greater beings... What the hell did I do to you?!

The fox lunges and I roll to the side, but not fast enough to avoid getting my arm tore off by its giant claws. I lose half of my forearm with that attack. Picking myself up before a counter attack, I run away while madly laughing trying to focus through the pain of losing an arm to rather dull giant claws.

Pulling my sidearm from its holster, I spin and find the blood red eyes just a few meters from me. It is charging low to the ground and it speed is something even I can't comprehend. In a blind panic, I unleash the entire clip in its approaching face, taking out both eyes.

While it thrashes around, I draw a first aid kit from my inventory and haphazardly fix my stump up to stop bleeding and down a potion to get my health back up. Finally, I look at the creature's name, [Kyuubi the Demon King]. I think someone watches to much anime. I pull a flash out and throw it at the creature to further stun it. The health bar read that its first bar is half down with five more to go. So going to die.

Reloading and holstering my side arm, I unslung my rifle and using my sling, wrapped it around my new stump, I can kind of aim with it. Unleashing a full auto clip into its bloody eyes, I see the first bar disappear. I guess this is one of those weak creatures that only advantage is its speed and damage. A dangerous combination that I, myself enjoy.

Ejecting the spent mag, I press the stock against my shoulder and awkwardly fish out two clips, one for the rifle and one for my mouth to keep at standby. The fox has finally gotten over the attack and starts to sniff the air. Shit.

I start shooting at the giant creature as I start running. It blurs as it follows and lunges at the place I was two seconds ago. This little dance lasted for hours until I used the last round of my sidearm. My aim for most of the battle has only hit its flank due to poor aiming, but I got in a few good headshots in. It is just at the end of its second to last bar of health. Putting all my weapons away, I continue dancing around the building size fox. I used the last of my ordinance on the polar bears the other day so explosives are out. I neglected to buy another knife so that is out.

As I ponder, I take a misstep and that is all the fox needs as he swipes his dull claws around and tears off the front of my armour, leaving giant grooves of tore flesh it in its wake. The armour shatters, but thankfully the hoodie stays together.

My health bar takes a dive to the red. With my high battle healing, the bleeding doesn't really matter anymore so my health just barely goes up a few points a second. Taking up the dance again, I carefully check my inventory and find some of the components to the bombs I dismantled. Taking out the unstable ingredients, I mix them in a bag and pray to the gods that they don't go off. I toss in some shrapnel and hurl it at the boss's side which causes it to detonate. It was all A grade stuff too, so the explosion was around the same intensity.

Due to the range of the boss and move body, I take some shrapnel to the eye. Effectively blinding myself and taking out my depth perception. It also almost killed me as my health reads to be under one hundred until I am dead. The fox however took a great deal of damage and has only a fifth of a bar left.

Out of Ideas, I start chanting the blood rage song. Soon my vision goes red and I charge at a high-speed. Vaulting off the ground, I grab its ear and start to viciously punch its head where a mass of bullets hit. The skin gives way to bone and a jump off before it could swipe me off its head.

Drawing my pistol, I time it again and jump on the head at the same spot and using the narrow barrel, I start smash it against the exposed bone. Level of detail the creators took is starting to get sickening. The bone soon cracks under the heavy hit. I turn around and wait for the swipe. As it comes, I use my buff and agility to flip over the paw, using the momentum to break the skull along with my abused pistol.

Without hesitating, I pull my last grenade out, a concussion one. Oh if this doesn't work then I am dead. Pulling the pin, I shove it in the void inside its head and jump off. As I land, I roll under the claw just as the grenade goes off and destroys the monster.

It however doesn't shatter like normal, it turned into a wavy energy and flew at me. It coated my arm and with agonizing pain, it melted into my skin leaving a twisting blood-red fox running up my arm. The tail starting at my wrist and the head resting on its paws draped from the back of my shoulder to the front. Much like the Kilroy symbol if it had been a fox.

A message popped up congratulating me on killing the demon. Another window tells my reward which is a ton of exp and a new gun [Foxy Colt].The description has some flavor text to it too. _The pistol served the Demon King while he was alive and human, may it cause more __mayhem__ in the hands of its new wielder._ The gun is a 1911 with black plating on the barrel and a black fox etched on the grip. It also called itself a cursed weapon. Equipping it, I found out why. A pop up told me that this was permanent. The gun will grow with me, but I can no longer change it out with another sidearm unless I want to over-encumber myself. It is also indestructible, so I guess that's a plus.

Sighing, I close the pop up and open my stats trying to figure out what the tattoo does. It doesn't say anything about it anywhere. Meh... At least it looks cool and I guess it can be another trophy from this fight. I stumble back up the stairs after searching the room and found nothing worth a penny.

I carefully made my way up the stairs, but it didn't matter for somehow in my mad dash for life, I activated all the traps on the two kilometer staircase. Getting back to the corridor, I hobble my way to the exit which was a kilometer the other direction... Grand.

It takes a few more hours to get back to the outpost due to the snow impeding my movement, the cold of the wind against my wounds, and having to avoid the mobs because of having no ammo. I finally get to the outpost when the post's chimes ten at night when monsters start getting badass. I'm also a little ashamed to admit, but with my eye out of action, which I covered with a bandage, I ran into a share of low hanging branches.

I make my way to the inn and draw many stares from my appearance. Once inside, I spot Cheshire and Lizbeth giggle together in the corner. Shuffling over there, I flop down next to my girlfriend. In a tired and pained voice, I greet them, "Sorry I'm late. The random shit took a turn for the worse and I got stuck in a room with a pissed off Demon King... Yeah it's as stupid and painful as it sounds."

The two ladies just stare at me and my numerous open wounds, lack of eye, and the stump I have for a forearm along with me being heavily coated in the fox's and my blood. Liz asks the first question, "Are you okay?"

"No... No... I about 20 points away from passing out."

Cheshire asks the second question. "How did you beat a Demon King solo?!"

"Well Kyuubi was not a push over. I think the only reason I am talking to you right now is the fact that is a blind panic when it charged me, I shot out both of his eyes. Also I can't go out tomorrow, I need to do a complete resupply on myself. I used all my ammo and had to bash the thing's head open and drop a concussion grenade in there to kill it. Yeah that's about as dangerous as it sounds."

"Crow... Please go to bed. You need rest so you can heal."

"Yeah... Yeah I think that's a good idea... Feeling a bit strange at the moment." With that, I stumble my way upstairs and to the room. As I take off my hoodie, it crumbles and breaks and the armour is already destroyed, so I just kick my boots off to the side and change into my pajama pants and pass out on my side of the bed.

* * *

A/N - Woo! Done with this chapter! Damn that was hard to do. Not the story, but getting it down. I am typing on my android and that is some bullshit to do almost 3000 in one sitting on it. Ohh my thumbs. Also do to technical error (I fucked up), I lost everything from the beginning of the corridor onwards. Hope you enjoyed and sorry for have very little dialogue in this chapter.


	13. Chapter 13

Well, I'm back with a new chapter. I hope it is better then the last. Thank you all for sticking with me. I have not abandoned this.

* * *

Waking with a start, I sit up in the bed. I feel a strange tingling in my hand. The one that was tore off by the fox. Looking down, I see that it is back and now that I'm awake, I can tell that the tingling was just the game registering my new hand. Well I assume. This is close to the feeling I had when I grew my legs back.

Looking at the time, I see that it is six in the morning. Since I'm already up, I get out of bed and clean the blood and soot off my pants and take off the leftover bandages. Everything is whole again and sore as if I got hit by a bus.

After all is washed, I put on my now clean cargos and my casual t-shirt which is just a plain white shirt. Quietly, I retrieve my boots and head out to replace my ammo, armor and clothing. This took some time to find armor near as good as my last set, thank Mother Bridget that my boots stayed together, it would have been impossible to replace these at the moment. I also grab a melee weapon, but this time I also pick up a tomahawk made of high-grade steel with the knife. I see myself destroying the long blade in the future, so I need a back up. Finally, I grab a loose hoodie and cover my

When I finish my shopping and now have a full resupply of goods. I also stock up on components and crystals. All of yesterday could have been avoided if I had a teleport crystal, or made easier with a health crystal.

I set up shop in an alleyway and slowly make my supplies up. By the time I'm done, it is noon, but I still feel the soreness and pains from my battle. To kill the time until Cheshire wakes up, I take a seat in the alleyway and work on some more songs from my advanced books. The new one I pick is "Diary of Jane" by an old band, Breaking Benjamin .

I memorize a few verses before Cheshire stumbles out of the inn looking tired. What time did that girl go to sleep? I call over to her as I get up from the cold ground. She sprints over and all but spear tackles me to the ground. Crushing my insides with a monster hug.

I hug her back and feel her shoulders starting to shake. Pulling back, I see that she is crying. "What's the matter?" I quickly ask, worried that something happened while I was out.

"You! You've been out for two days!" She cries out as she crushes me back into a hug. I stay in her embraces as I wait for her to calm down. Rubbing circles on her back. I hear her mumble into my shirt, "They found the boss yesterday. The meeting is later today. I think it is called [Fenris the Demon Prince]. A really big wolf."

She soon breaks from the rib shattering hug without doing too much damage to my person. Draping my arm around her shoulders, we head out to wait for the meeting in the square where the clock's set up. "Sorry to worry you love. I can say without a doubt say, I did not plan to almost be eaten by a giant fox." She elbows me in the ribs and picks up the pace to the square.

Everyone joins the meet after three hours of waiting in the square, we each eat some late lunch and Cheshire catches me up with what I missed while I throw together my X-rounds and FMJs.. A few people heard about my condition and sent their regards for my health. Apparently, Argo came by to see how I was doing at one point and she spread around that I was down for the count. Blasted girl, always messing around with me.

The meeting began with the blue haired guy once again trying to motivate us to clear the game. Blah blah blah. We go over the strategy for a bit then break for supplies then go off in the standard convoy. Again, Cheshire and I are in the back with a few other misfits. The plan is the usual, guild up front and minors back with the heavy hitters giving support or in the swordsman kid's case, at the feet of the boss, beating the shit out of it.

The ride was uneventful and I just sing a few ballads and buff whoever is in the truck with us. I also start practicing a few verses from the song I was working on earlier. I really want to hear it in its completed version even if the song calls for a guitar. If I pick up the pace, I can bullshit that aspect of it.

We are the first to dismount from the vehicle when they park outside what looks to be a small tunnel like the one with the King in it. We all go in a single file line and soon reach an opening where there is the usual boss door. We enter after another speech from the leader. The room is bare, but has a tall ceiling with no light to illuminate it.

Suddenly, the wolf drops to the ground in front of us with a boom and a large cloud of dust. Everyone draws their weapons and takes aim. Surprisingly, a deep, gravelly voice rings out from cloud, "Hold Humans." As the dust settle, the wolf is there, staring at the group with yellow, feral eyes. "I sense a human here that has bested me master in these chambers." oh not good. he lifts his giant head and sniffs the air.

He quickly whips his head around and looks at me. OH SHIT! As I stare wide-eyed at it, it starts talking to me. "Show me the mark of my master Human and I will make a deal with you." Hesitantly, I step forward and pull off my armor and shirt, exposing the tattoo.

A booming laugh echoes through the chambers, "Ah, I was correct, you have indeed defeated my master. You have proven your worth in my eyes. I challenge you to a duel. Pick your best fighter and fight me. If you win, I will be under your command. If you loss, well... I will hunt down all you love and destroy it."

Looking back at the group, I glance at Cheshire, "Chesh! I'm doing this!" I turn my attention to the swordsman kid I see in the truck all the time. "Yo Kirita or Kirito, whatever your name is, you want in on this?" He stares at me for a bit and nods his head. "Cool, Chesh! If I lose, make sure this raid finishes!"

"Crow you stupid bastard! You just got out of a mini-coma! Why the fuck are you fighting a giant ass wolf now?!" Cheshire yelled after me, using more vulgar language in that sentence than she would in a week. My manners must be rubbing off on her.

I turn back to the wolf as I put my armor back on, "I accept your offer. This swordsman will be joining me." Kirito steps up next to me. Just as I finish saying that, a clear wall goes up between us and the rest of the raid. Well I guess is truly to the death. I draw my rifle and fire the open shot as Kirito takes off at the wolf with his glowing sword.

As Kirito charge, the wolf lunges at him. In a burst of speed, he rolls under the creature's feet and start slashing his underside. My rifle echos the room as I switch it to full auto, take a knee, and start to unload my weapon on its head. Little blood squirts here and there tells me that I am hitting. Since it is the head, each is a critical.

After the first of his seven bars go down, he roars out in frustration as he flings all his limbs out, attempting to crush Kirito. There is a black blur flying out from underneath the prince as he falls. Kirito just did the mother of all dives to get out from beneath the wolf. On impact, a large dust cloud erupts from the ground.

I stop firing because I can't see and Kirito takes a defensive posture. Suddenly from the dust, the prince pounces for me. With a wordless cry, I fling myself to the side before its giant teeth could tear into me. Going full retreat, I see Kirito charging at me at full speed. As we pass, I do an about-face and tuck my rifle in. I do a backwards tumble and came up on my knee with my rifle ready and already having the trigger semi-pressed.

I quickly find the beast's head and we start the game again. Kirito starts to mix it up by swinging around the legs like a monkey and jump between them. I stick to the classics of blowing away its face. You know, the fun stuff. As I fire like a maniac, I had an epiphany. If the master could be blinded, why can't the prince? I soon slow my roll and start to carefully aim for its eye. I fire a burst and miss and hit its snout. which causes it to pause as it sneezes. In this pause, I line up my shot and fire. This one also does not fly true and goes into its ear.

It turns to me and charges. I guess the system made it realize what I was doing. Firing wildly, I run away. Why didn't I pack grenades. Wait, I made a satchel, did I put any in there? I stop firing and focus on running and recollecting. No I didn't, dammit. I did make landmines though. Opening my menu, I hear Cheshire scream. I see a shadow out of the corner of my eye, and dive to the side. Just in time as the place I was standing is now replaced with sharp claws as big as a bed.

Using the time I got, I draw out my satchel and pull out the landmine. I pull the pin as the prince turns to me and throw the active explosive at it. seems, I once again misjudge the power of an explosive I am throwing, and get flung back as it detonates on Fenrir's skull. As I get up, I see Kirito jump and stab the flank of the creature, so I lost its aggro. I put the satchel away and start unloading my rifle into it again. I'll use it when it gets really back.

That did not take long, for a minute later. Its fur starts to turn into a deep shade of red for what I assume is a berserker mode. "Kirito Retreat!" I shout as I pull out the satchel of explosives. I pull out another landmine from it and pull the pin. I throw the bag at the wolf as it chases Kirito and it lands between them. "RUN YOU FUCKER!" I shout in my vulgar way as I throw the active landmine at the bag which the wolf is rapidly approaching. Kirito kicks off with a burst of speed as the mine lands upside down.

It hits just as the wolf steps on it. The shockwave throws Kirito, but he is unharmed because he got far enough away thanks to his insane speed. My hair and clothes are the only thing that gets ruffled by the explosive, thankfully I did not take shrapnel to the eyes again. The wolf takes the full hit however and flies back. Drawing the Foxy Colt, I start unloading on the fallen body as it struggle to its feet. Thanks to all the hits its taken from both of us, the wolf is near its last bar of health.

I finish off all five of my clips of 45's just as it gets its bearings. Out of options, I pull my knife and axe out and charge at the creature as Kirito slashes apart its legs. "Kirito! Give me a boost!" He turns and immediately figures out what I am about to do. Great minds think alike. As I reach the young man, he crouches down and I use his back to vault up the wolf onto its back.

As I land, I bring the knife and ax down on its spine. "Now it's your turn!" I call down as I hook my boots on my weapons and hang down the wolf's flank. Kirito gives me a smirk and jumps, just reaching my hands. He uses me as a ladder and climbs aboard the Fenrir express. Getting back up, I see Kirito just brutalizing the poor thing's head as it whips it back and forth, fruitlessly trying to dislodge him. I just haphazardly stab its spine with my tomahawk as I use my knife to keep myself on the creature as it flails around.

One more strike until it is dead. The glowing weapon came down and hit the back of the roaring creature's head. There was no shattering sound because the creature didn't die, but Kirito did get the reward for killing it and the last attack item. I also got half the experience which needless to say, we both leveled up a few times. I finally reach level 70 of the 350 levels in this game. Min maxing for the win!

I guess the battle is over for the creature stopped moving and my knife got ejected for stabbing an immortal object, so we jump off the wolf and it backs up to face us. "Congratulations my liege and my liege's knight. I am now yours to command." With that he shatters and I gain an item. It just says Fenrir. I shrug, I'm not activating it now.

Turning to Kirito, I give out a laugh that is heavily dosed in insanity as I pick him up in a crushing manly hug. After putting him down, my head is struck by a feminine hand. HARD. Just under the requirement needed to be considered assault. Looking back, I see a PISSED Cheshire. "Um..." I start, but then I break away and flee towards the next level, screaming like a little girl, with Cheshire on my heels shouting obscenities at me. Damn, I really am increasing her vocabulary. I sprint down the road with Cheshire matching my steps if not gaining on me. She took the sprint skill a few levels back and I guess she is just a natural because she is only a few feet behind me.

Suddenly, I trip up as she tackles my legs and I slam my head into the dirt. As I lay there stunned, she quickly clambered up my body and put me in a headlock from the back. "Why didn't you chose me as your second Crowy?" She asks in a sickly sweet voice. OH HO SHIT! Not getting out of this one in one piece.

"Um... I need a close range fighter and well..." I began, but soon gave up on the lie as she tightened the hold. When she finishes strangling me and lets me have air back, I continue with the truth, "To be honest, I thought there was a rather large chance that I was going to die, so I needed someone to make sure the raid finished without anymore causality and well... I can't really willingly put the girl I love in a situation where the outcome would most likely be death or an immense amounts of pain. I am surprised however that, compared to Kyuubi, this guy was a pushover and Kyuubi was blind the entire time. I guess there was a large decrease in power that I did not expect. Sorry to worry you again in so little time," I finish my rambling as she slowly starts to move.

Cheshire slowly loosened the hold as she said, "Okay... But if you EVER do something like that again! I will shoot you in the BALLS with FIRE!"

I flinch like I have been struck and whimper out pathetically, "Yes dear... Please don't shoot me." Make me face a wolf that is the size of a one story house, I'll kick its ass with nary a scratch, pit me against my enrage girlfriend and I crumble in seconds.

She lets me up and asks what I got from the wolf. Her tone taking a complete 180 from threatening my balls to a sweet and curious voice. Nervous of further harm, I go into my inventory and activate the item. Fenrir materializes in front of me, but he is now the size of a Labrador Retriever and he looks AWESOME! "Greetings my liege. As you can tell, I am now your [Pet]. I will follow any orders you give to my fullest extent." Once he says pet, a pop up with the info came into view.

Pets:

Followers that accompany the player. Some have the ability to fight while others support the player and their party. The pet follows all commands the player gives while slowly gaining intelligence to better assist in their role.

Pets can only be traded to the player's wife/husband and can not be sold

Cool! I've seen some people with pets! There suppose to be hard as hell to get. More awesome! "My first command to you is," I pat Cheshire on the shoulder, "This woman takes priority over my life. If we are in danger, you are to help her before even thinking about helping me. Do you understand?" The wolf bows his head, indicating that he understood. "Now the heavy stuff is out of the way, welcome to the family Fenrir!" The wolf seemed to grin at this and took his position behind Cheshire. This is made irrelevant as she summoned the car. She took the driver seat while I hopped in the turret to let my new pet take the front so he doesn't fall out while we are flying down the road. That would be a hammer to the prince's pride.

I take in my surroundings while keeping the gun on a circular pattern to cover us. The new area seems to be a swampy area full of zombies and what seems to be poisonous creatures. That can be worrisome. There was also a reddish-orange giant beetle looking thing. I wonder if they blow up like in other games with red monsters? I call down to Cheshire, "YO! I'm opening fire to test something." She calls back a confirmation.

I line the barrel with the approaching beetle and open fire on it. As soon as the heavy caliber rounds tear into the insect, the body expands by a thousand percent, then erupts in a fiery explosion of destruction. Ho-ly shit. I laugh like a maniac as the buggy flies through the cloud of ash that was produced. "That was awesome!" I cry as we continue down the road. I hear a similar cackling from Cheshire as she speeds along.

I get a message for the reward. I get a rather large amount of experience. Looking at the page, I open it further to see what got me all that experience because that thing died way too fast and since Cheshire is driving this car, then she got half of the rewards. I see that the explosion killed a very long list of undead enemies. Awesome and terrifying because if they were that close together, then this place has mobs that will ambush you in large numbers.

"Chesh! Look for any red beetles! That explosion killed sooo many things and they seem to be a signal of an ambush!" We continue down the road as Cheshire pointed out all the beetles and I blew them up. This helped Cheshire leveled up just as we got into the new town. It seems to be made of scrap metal. The buildings look large, but the materials make it seem a lot smaller than what it would look like if they used say steel. We start to search for the inn, which we find a few minutes later, near the middle of the town. We pick our room and sleep for it took a few hours to get here and we are both tired. Fenrir took the foot of the bed with us.

The next morning found us hunting for some quests to do in the scrap metal town. The first we found was a crying child. Cheshire walks up to the young boy and kneels to eye level. "What's the matter little one?" She asks in a concerned voice.

"M-My daddy was killed by the things i-in the swamp. H-He had to get some wood for our fire, so he and u-uncle went for wood, but *sniff* daddy never came back! My daddy always carried around a pocket watch with mommy and him in it. Could you find it? Uncle told me *sniff* where he died, b-but made me promise not to go until I'm older!" the young child told us while trying not to let his voice break.

Cheshire, moved by the story, hugged the NPC while agreeing to the quest. The child returned the embrace and backed away. I too agree to the quest and ruffle the boy's hair as I pass him into the swamp. The swamp is full of wet mud with trees as far as the eye can see. Cheshire and I take to the tree tops. With my acrobatics and her high agility, we make go time. Fenrir also seems far more agile than either of us gave him credit for as he easily kept go to the area that is marked on our map and soon find a hoard of zombies. In the middle is a corpse of a middle age man. Near him, I see the item we are searching for.

"I have a plan Crow. The standard distract and grab we usually do," Cheshire whispers to me. Glancing over, I see a worried expression on her face. I give her a nudge to the ribs and a smile to get her to continue. "You are still the faster and more agile person in this group. When you start the distraction, I'll get the watch and take to the trees."

I give her a grin, "What? Why not just run in their like a madman and take it like any normal player," I asked jokingly. She kicks me in the shin. After hopping around for a bit, I stop and agree to her plan. Checking my rifle, I sling it across my back and draw my cursed pistol.

"I'll message you when I get the watch." We nod and take our positions

I sneak my way over to the other side of the clearing and open fire on the zombies. I stand there for a bit to make sure they are following, then bolt back to town. I occasionally stop to shoot some more and keep the aggro going. Soon, a message pops up, telling me that Cheshire has the watch and is heading back to town.

I pick up the speed and jump into the tree line to escape the zombies. I soon make it back to the town and sit on the roof of a building to wait for Cheshire. After a few minutes, I see a pair of black blurs launch out of the trees and land inside the town. It is Cheshire and Fenrir. She starts walking towards the young boy.

Getting up and hopping off the roof, I fall into step behind Fenrir. we get to the crying boy and Cheshire hands him the watch. He gets a huge smile on his small face and hugs Cheshire's leg. Well off to do more stuff to get more experience.

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A/N - well the we are. Another chapter up. Review so I can become a better writer! Thanks for reading!


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